#sorry towa we game overed so many times | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

danganronpasurvivoraskblog · 1 year

Text

Robot Rights.

How’s that coming along?

Pretty good thanks. I doubt I’m gonna work out all the kinks but thanks for letting me use your workbench.

Just make sure you clean up after yourself and don’t touch any of my flowers, alright?

I won’t, I promise.

*Rantaro sits at Oliver’s workbench, fiddling with the symmetra matrix earring.

Oh. Morning.

...?

...

*As Oliver goes back upstairs, he passes by and greets Shuichi, Kaede and Mii-Yu, who come downstairs.

Ah...So now’s the time, eh?

Hello to you to Rantaro.

Haha...Sorry, that was pretty rude, huh? Hello to you too Shuichi. Kaede...Mii-Yu.

Oh look at that, he knows her name.

Kaede, don’t be sour. I think we’ve caused Rantaro enough trouble.

Agreed. If we wish to ask questions, then we must be more humble.

It’s ok. I was rude first. I just somehow knew that as soon as things died down, you’d want to come by and asking me questions about what I’d been up to.

We don’t have as many questions as you might think. Could you spare a few minutes.

Sure, but...if you don’t mind, I’m gonna keep working on this while we talk.

Fine.

*Shuichi and Kaede ask Rantaro multiple questions about his whereabouts and happenings during his absence.

So let me recap then. You woke up around the same time as the rest of us did, and you were found and rescued by ERR0RM3SS4GE?

Basically. As you know, ERR0RM3SS4GE recently collaborated with Uchui Kamukura. We’ve actually been in league with him for a while, until recently that is.

So the mission to get him to Zetsubou was your last job?

Zetsubou our our enemies, but Uchui has been a friend for a while. We couldn’t refuse one last job from him after all he’d done for us.

But the point is the labs that we were contained in were property of Uchui’s family legacy. They were originally created for storing test subjects for the Kamukura’s sick experiments, but Uchui put them to good use containing us. At least, until he figured out what to do with us.

But then Tsumugi and Organization Zetsubou found us, right?

Unfortunately yes. As soon as Tsumugi took over the labs, ERR0RM3SS4GE and Uchui made a risky move. They deactivated the pods and let us escape, scattering us around the world. With the exception of Himiko, Maki and you, Shuichi.

According to my historical database, Tsumugi Shirogane was able to capture Kaito, Angie and Gonta before all three were freed from captivity or control.

Miu, Tenko and Kirumi went into hiding, Ryoma wound up in Towa City and joined Akeru’s warrior pack, and Kokichi was funded by Zetsubou to stay out of trouble following his escape, in which he concocted a plan to destroy them involving Keebo, who he had salvaged.

Additionally, Kaede lost her memories after her escape, and was taken in by Chinami Hasami. And lastly...you Rantaro, joined ERR0RM3SS4GE.

How come you were the only one that was invited to join?

My skills interested them. This isn’t the first time I’ve done a good bit of programming, hacking and scouting, you know?

Also, I kind of insisted on it. With Zetsubou becoming a rising problem in recent years, I wanted to do my bit to prevent being caught in a THIRD killing game.

I understand that, but why not join Future Foundation with us?

It’d cause too much confusion if I just showed up out of nowhere. Plus, I had already met the team, so I would have been sworn to secrecy anyway.

Fair enough.

Is that all the questions you have for now?

Well...I’ve learned what you know about our circumstances, so assuming you’re not lying. I guess I just have one more thing to ask.

Kiyo is still missing. We haven’t been able to locate him since the beginning of all this. Do you know where we can find him?

Regrettably no. Kiyo vanished into thin air after ERR0RM3SS4GE deactivated the labs. He could be dead or captured by Zetsubou for all we know. However, I don’t think it’s anything to worry about.

How come?

If Kiyo was captured by Zetsubou, Shirogane would no doubt have utilized him against us already. Plus, if he was out causing trouble and murdering people again, don’t you think we would have seen something on the news? There haven’t been any serial killer situations lately that follow his pattern.

Right, I know what you mean...

I have one more thing to ask. It’s not really important, but I need to know it.

Yeah? What’s that?

...I need to know your relationship with Mii-Yu.

Kaede...!?

I wasn’t there to witness it, but Shuichi told me the story. In the factory, you were able to brainwash Mii-Yu using something called an admin code. But after Mii-Yu attacked the Tower, Mona and Miu removed her antennae to prevent her from being brainwashed.

So how did you pull that off? How did you know what the admin code was, and how were you able to activate it? You must have had some prior interaction with Mii-Yu in order to know that would work, or some robot like it.

I suppose the excuse that I’m privy to these sorts of things doesn’t work here, huh?

Nope!

Fine...Although, all things considered, the actual answer is a lot simpler than you might think.

And that is?

*Rantaro stops working on the Symmetra, stands up and looks at them.

I’m the one who made it~

...!

WHAT!?

Yep, that’s about the reaction I expected.

You...are...

UUGH!

Mii-Yu!

Uh oh. Looks like she’s having sensory overload.

I...I just remembered...

*Mii-Yu clutches her head, but stands up straight again with Kaede’s support.

As soon as I lay eyes upon you, something did not feel right in my internal mechanism and memory database.

Now that you have said that though, I feel like I have gained the missing piece of apparatus and...

You remember? Heh...It’s like going into the recycle bin of a laptop and hitting restore, right?

Are you serious!? You’re telling me YOU’RE Mii-Yu’s CREATOR!?

To be more specific, I’m her PROGRAMMER. I wrote the code, AI, memory banks and...well...Everything that makes Mii-Yu, Mii-Yu.

I DIDN’T build her body. She was a collaborative work between me and an old friend.

An old friend?

Susuru Kojima, the Ultimate Engineer. A fellow participant in the 52nd Killing Game. That was when Mii-Yu was created.

But...wait...Tsumugi said that Mii-Yu was the prototype version of Keebo! And they ended up going with him for V3!

Mii-Yu ended up being a more popular addition to the series than Team DR expected, so they decided to allow Tsumugi to continue with the robot trend with V3. At least, that’s how I think of it.

...How could you...?

How could I what?

*Kaede puts her foot down angrily.

If you’re Mii-Yu’s creator, how could you treat her like that!? Brainwashing her, making her fight her friends, dehumanizing her!? What’s wrong with you!?

Dehumanizing her? She’s not a human Kaede. I don’t know if that’s even possible.

No, I’m with Kaede on this. You’re being way too harsh to her, talking down to her as if her feelings don’t matter!

It’s a line of code Shuichi, not real feelings! It DOESN’T matter!

...Stop it!

*Everyone looks towards Mii-Yu.

I refuse to let you all argue, right in front of me, over whether or not my life and feelings are worth considering.

To be honest...I do somewhat agree with Rantaro. Even if I am a humanoid robot, my feelings will never be more than that of an analytic computer. I’m not the same as BeeZero, who is programmed to live and learn as a human does.

I was made to serve a purpose...not that I remember what that purpose was.

Well, now’s a good time to ask.

But now’s NOT a good time to tell.

Why not!? Don’t you think you owe her an answer!?

I said ENOUGH!

...!?

Allow me to make my stance clear here, Rantaro Amami.

I...am grateful. Obscenely grateful, that you created me. However, if I may be honest for a moment...

I have been looking all this time to find out what purpose I was built for...but now that I stand in front of you...I don’t care anymore.

Oh?

It doesn’t matter if I was just a test, or a prototype, or an experiment, or if I was used for a more personal, malicious or selfish purpose.

You gave me a life. And I intend to live that life. The way that I want.

How’s THAT for a line of code?

...

Hehe...You’ve surprised me. Miu and Keebo’s straightforwardness is really rubbing off on you.

Many will say they do not make for good role models. I disagree.

Still...I do admit I feel guilty. No matter how I feel about the situation, I’ve clearly upset you all.

And I shouldn’t have mistreated you the way that I did. Just looking at you reminds me of a time I would rather forget. Even I have issues, and I have a fair few of them.

*Rantaro turns around and reaches for a small box and takes something out of it.

Mind coming closer for a second? I’m not gonna hurt you, I promise.

...

It’s ok. I have faith in him.

*Mii-Yu approaches Rantaro, who takes the item and fastens it to Mii-Yu’s head.

That’s...

This is...

Believe me, I’m doing this for more than just an apology. If we’re working together against Zetsubou, I’m gonna need you all to trust me. Observe...

“Admin Input- Voice Authentication. Code: 1003XX.”

...!

Mii-Yu!?

...

I am fine.

See? This antennae prevents the admin code or any other sort of control form working on you. Consider it my thank you card.

Now, if that’s everything, I’ll get back to work.

That should be it. Fine, we’ll leave. Thanks for answering my questions.

Thank you Rantaro.

Sure...

*Shuichi turns around to leave; Mii-Yu bows and follows. Kaede however, pauses for a moment.

Something wrong?

...

I’m willing to work with you if it means we can save Maki and Himiko and stop Tsumugi and Zetsubou...

But I don’t trust you...What are you hiding from us Rantaro?

...You’re a detective assistant, aren’t you? Figure it out...

...!

*Kaede scoffs and leaves.

#danganronpa survivor #danganronpa #danganronpa v3 #drv3 #danganronpa new world order #drnwo #hyper danganronpa h2o #hdrh2o #rantaro amami #kaede akamatsu #shuichi saihara #m11-yu #miiyu #oliver feng #the monster in me arc

10 notes · View notes

the-karma-cafe · 3 years

Text

they deserve better :T (warriors of hope comfort n slight byakuya x reader)

A/N: they are,,, just kiddos,,, they deserve,,, better,,,, komaru kin check

The Warriors of Hope sat in front of us, their faces not… sad, exactly, but a bit diminished. Byakuya adjusted his glasses. “I’ll leave it up to you, Kirigiri, but I don’t think they should be left alive.” Nagisa flinched at this, but kept his gaze level and hardened. I felt a pang of sympathy for these kids. They didn’t know… they’re just kids… they…

I placed a hand on Byakuya’s shoulder. He blinked and looked down at me curiously. My teeth worried my lip, “Hey… Would it be alright if I took care of them?”

He grunted in surprise. “What?” He turned, gently grabbing my elbow as my hand dropped from his shoulder. I smiled slightly at the contact. He realized what he’d done and dropped his hands. “It seems like a waste of time to me. Kirigiri?”

Kyoko pursed her lips, eyeing us for a beat. My teeth worried at my lip harder, drawing blood. “Shit,” I mumbled, licking my lips.

She sighed, checking her watch. “That’s fine. Use the collection of rooms in the east wing.” She looked back up, meeting my eyes. “Be careful.”

I smiled reassuringly. “Thank you.” My eyes turned to Byakuya’s worried ones. He held my gaze for a beat.

He huffed. “Fine, do as you wish. I won’t be surprised if I find you dead, though.” He left the room without a backwards glance. My lips twitched up watching him leave. Worry betrayed his true feelings in his rigid shoulders and clenched fists. Nigh impossible to identify to the untrained eye, but to the Ultimate Observer…

I turned to the children. Only Nagisa made eye contact. He crossed his arms over his chest and lifted his chin. “What are your intentions, demon?”

I smiled and knelt down to his level. “To spare your lives. Is that pursuit not noble enough for you?”

He frowned. “Why?”

“Ah,” I looked at the ground. “As cliche as it is, I believe you are misunderstood.”

His brows furrowed in agitation. “You believe WRONG, demon. You’d be better off killing us where we stand.” Kotoko flinched and grabbed at Nagisa’s arm. “Don’t say that! She’ll listen to you!”

I nodded. “No, it’s fine. Everyone should speak their mind. Although I assure you I won’t be killing anyone anytime soon.” I pushed myself up from my crouch and held out my hand to the children. “Follow me?”

Kotoko grinned and grabbed my hand easily. “I hope my room is super adorbs!”

I led them to the east wing, Masaru and Kotoko chatting my ears off. They learned things about me but with all their talking, I heard nothing of their backgrounds. I smiled awkwardly. I didn’t think they’d be so forthcoming. Nagisa and Jataro trailed behind me, less than thrilled about the situation.

We ended up at the east wing and I led them into the main room. Masaru ran over to one of the chairs and hopped into it, laughing loudly. Nagisa huffed something about childishness under his breath. Kotoko held steadfast to my hand. Jataro tugged on the hem of my shirt, “Uh, hi! Is there a uh um art room or something? Duh huh.. Sorry I’m so ugly and annoying and-”

I placed a soft hand on his head. “Hey,” I spoke quietly. He looked up curiously. “Don’t say those things about yourself, okay?”

Kotoko rolled her eyes. “But he is those things. It’s the truth.”

I shook my head. “Please don’t say those things, Kotoko. Being mean isn’t adorable.”

She gasped. “You’re right! I’m soooo sorry! Please forgive me!”

“There’s nothing to be forgiven. You made a mistake and have been corrected. Everything’s fine, okay?”

Jataro frowned. “Why don’t you hate me? Hate me, already! Who do.. I have to make a masterpiece? Of all your friends? Maybe that blonde guy, huh?” He smirked evilly. “I bet you’d really hate me if I killed him, huh? Hate me so much you’d wanna claw my skin off!”

I winced. “I… I would appreciate it if you left Byakuya alone. I don’t want to hate you, please don’t try to make me.” I straightened up. “It takes a lot for me to hate someone, anyway. Obviously, or I wouldn’t’ve stood up for you kids.”

Jataro grinned. “What, do you *like* him or something?”

Pink dusted my cheeks and I internally scolded myself. “Of course. As a.. colleague.”

Kotoko squealed. “I know a girl in love when I see one! That’s soooo adorable! You have to tell him immediately!”

My cheeks color deepened. “Please, Kotoko, I love the enthusiasm but I really can’t.”

She frowned. “Why not?”

I pursed my lips. “Well… we’re recovering from the tragedy in Towa City. Duty comes first and foremost. It’d be selfish of me to let feelings get in the way.”

The room was quiet after that, the children not eager to talk about what happened. I cleared my throat. “Right. I figure individual attention is best? But I won’t force anything. If any of you would like to talk to me, you can find me in the other room.” I smiled easily. “I’d love to talk, but I understand if not.” With that, I left the room.

I closed the door behind me and heaved a deep sigh. This was going to be draining. My phone buzzed in my pocket, startling me. I laughed slightly at my reaction before answering. “Hel-?”

“Are you alright?” Byakuya’s cold voice cut through my greeting. My heart warmed. He was worried.

I beamed at no one, heading into the next room. “Yes, yes, I’m fine. Don’t let anyone hear you~” I teased. “God forbid Togami have feelings.”

I could hear him scowl through the phone. “I’m merely concerned for a colleague, nothing more.”

I bit my lip. “Yeah.. just a colleague…” I wish I didn’t feel this way. Things would be so much easier for everyone if I could just stuff my feelings down so far that they’d disappear. Byakuya wouldn’t return them anyway. Sure, he cared if I died but he wasn’t about to ask me about my day or anything.

He was quiet for a second. “….Yes. What is your plan of action for the children?”

I leaned against a wall and raked a hand through my hair. “For now I’m just waiting for one of ‘em to approach me. I don’t wanna overwhelm anyone.”

“That sounds.. ineffective.”

I laughed dryly. “Got any better ideas?”

“You wouldn’t like them.”

I grinned fondly. “You know me so well.”

“We are colleagues, after all.”

“Right… colleagues.”

Another pause. “If that’s all, I’ll be hanging up.”

I bit my lip. “Wait.” It was quiet. He was waiting. Was I really going to ask now, of all times? I frowned. Yes, yes I was. “Am I really just a colleague to you?”

It was quiet again and I immediately regretted asking. What was I thinking?? His answer was only going to upset me and put me in a mindset where I wouldn’t be able to take care of the kids properly and would probably-

“No.”

What? “What?” I breathed, echoing my thoughts.

“You heard me.” He huffed. “We’re not just colleagues. The killing game changed that. I…” he trailed off. “You are at least a friend. A trusted one. I cannot say that for many people.”

I smiled. Friend. That was better than colleague. “Thank you, Byakuya. That means a lot to me. I hope you know that you are… very precious to me.” There was a knock on the door. “Oh, I have my first visitor. Talk to you later?”

“Hm.” He hummed and hung up. I stuffed the phone in my pocket.

I opened the door to see an irritated Kotoko. She pointed her little finger in my face angrily. “I heard you!! Just confess already!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Yes you do!” She walked in and sat down in one of the chairs. “You were on the phone with blondie, right? Just tell him you love him!”

I shrugged, taking a seat opposite her. “I wish it were that simple. I’m not as brave as you or Masaru. If he didn’t return my feelings it’d definitely ruin our friendship.”

Kotoko pouted. “So!! Some friendships need to be ruined!”

I smiled. “I’m touched that you care, but I’ll need some time to build up my courage.”

She nodded fiercely. “I’ll help you!”

I worked my way through each of the children. I did make progress. My ultimate always came in handy with children.

With Kotoko, I needed to treat her like a close friend. Trust her with my secrets, take her advice on relationships, agree to let her dress me up later, and don’t ever use the word “gentle.”

“Well, that wasn’t so bad, right? You can head back to the others now, if you’d like.”

She hopped up from her chair. “That was easy! But I could’ve been acting the whole time. I’m the best at that.”

I covered my chest in mock surprise. “Are you? I never would’ve guessed!”

She nodded. “Yes, yes, I know!” She walked over to me and fidgeted with the hem of her dress for a second. “…Can I get something before I leave?”

I tilted my head, confused. “If I have it, I suppose. What’s wrong?”

She looked at the ground. “Can I have a hug?”

A large smile bloomed on my face. “Of course you can, Kotoko.” I pushed up from my chair and knelt down, arms outstretched. She jumped into my arms easily and I wrapped them around her. You’re safe with me, I promise nothing bad will happen again.

With Nagisa, I needed to treat him like an adult. Respect him as an equal, use big words, ask for his input on things, and reassure him that there is no pressure. At one point he demanded that I have higher expectations of him, something I didn’t expect.

I frowned. “Like what?”

He pulled at his hair “Anything! Just, please, expect more of me!” I gently unwrapped his hands from his hair.

“If that’s what you want. Do tell me if it’s ever too much, though, alright? I don’t want to overwhelm you.” I held his hands in my own to keep them away from his hair.

Nagisa searched my eyes desperately. “Promise you’ll expect more of me?”

I nodded. “Of course. You’re very grown up, it’s only natural that expectations of you will rise.” I released his hands and held out my arms. “You’re not obligated to, but some of the others wanted hugs.”

The beginnings of tears formed in his eyes and I pretended not to notice. He stepped into my arms hesitantly. I wrapped him in my arms, holding him close and trying to put as much love into it as possible. I heard a choked sob from my shoulder and smoothed circles on his back.

“D-Don’t tell the others a-about this.” He pushed out.

I shook my head. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

With Jataro, I needed to treat him like I wanted him there, which I did. Don’t interrupt him, reassure him that you do not hate him, insist he is not ugly, encourage his artistic passion but discourage killing people. Fascination with gore is fine as long as it doesn’t harm anyone. Introduce him to the concept of horror media.

I pulled up a horror game google search on my phone and held it out to him. “That’s one of the games I was talking about. You’re welcome to scroll through the pictures.”

“This isn’t very true to life…” he frowned.

I winced. “Ah.. not many have seen the things you have, Jataro. Both a gift and a curse, I suppose. Now you can portray things very accurately, but I do hope nothing haunts you later on in life.”

“Duh huh.. I can always go kill again for reference.”

I shook my head. “Please do not. You already have enough references.”

He sneered. “I bet you hate me for saying that, huh?”

“No, I don’t. I doubt I’ll ever hate you, Jataro, and I definitely don’t want to. I’m here for you.”

Jataro fiddled with his sleeves. “Oh… for me?”

I nodded.

“Oh………. Okay.” It seemed to get through to him a bit. “Can I go now?”

“Of course.”

With Masaru, I needed to treat him like, well, a kid. Praise him for his enthusiasm, praise him for his excellence in sports, compliment his leadership abilities, don’t let him hurt himself, reassure him that it’s okay to be scared. At one point, something I said had sent him back to that time and he started punching his arms.

“No! Stop shaking. Weak weak scared-“ His already bruised arms started to get worse. I immediately grabbed his hands. He struggled against my hold. “Lemme go!”

I pulled him against me, holding him. “It’s okay to be scared. You’re not weak. Everything is fine. You’re with me now.” I repeated mantras I had with the other children softly.

It took a couple of minutes but Masaru eventually stopped struggling and threw his arms around me. “Girls are stupid cowards.. shut up…”

I smiled. “I might be a coward, but I’m smart. I know some things.”

His hold on me tightened. “Please don’t leave me… I promise I’ll be good, I won’t make you look like the bad guy again……”

“I’m not going anywhere, Masaru. You’re a good boy, okay?”

He nodded.

I closed the door to their collective room with a soft click, not missing the knowing wink Kotoko sent my way. I breathed out evenly, filled with a sense of accomplishment. I was right to stand up for them. Hopefully, with much time and effort, these kids would get… a little better. That was all I could really hope to achieve.

“Have fun?” A voice called out, startling me. I jumped, glancing around until I saw Byakuya leaning coolly against a nearby wall. He checked his watch pointedly. “You were with them for quite some time.” His unspoken question hung in the air. Did you make any progress?

I smiled, walking over. “Yes!” I came to a stop in front of him, my grin turning coy. “You didn’t doubt my abilities, did you?”

He raised his eyebrows, gazing down his nose at me. He hummed, turning to leave. I scurried after him, fiddling with my fingers. We walked in silence, the voices of the children fading behind us.

I recalled Kotoko’s encouragement. She’d want me to say something right about now. Not to mention, it’d give me something to bond with her over during my next visit…

I cleared my throat, stopping in the hall. Byakuya continued walking, and I almost thought he wasn’t going to stop for me.

But he did.

He glanced back at me, a confused frown prepared. “What.” He quipped. Sigh, he certainly didn’t make things easy.

I took in a deep breath. “I believe there’s a way for me to get closer to Kotoko…” He stared quietly, not catching on to how on Earth this had anything to do with him. “…And I’d need your… cooperation. Is that alright?”

He pursed his lips disapprovingly. “This was your project, (L/N). I thought I made it clear I want no part of it.”

I chewed my lip, not able to keep eye contact. “Can I ask anyway?”

A dramatic sigh echoed between us, but he remained quiet. I met his eyes again. His arms were folded over his chest and he pinned me with an expectant gaze. Now or never. I squeezed my hands together, searching for the right words. “Do you remember our conversation on the phone earlier?”

He nodded wordlessly, but his expression tensed slightly. Likely not the best sign to keep going, but I was doing this for Kotoko. Yeah.. for her… not me.

“Right, of course you do.” I waved my hand around nervously. “Well, it has to do with that. Kotoko, as you probably know, has a soft spot for um… romance. The main thing she wanted to speak with me about was my uh…” I couldn’t physically take holding his gaze right now, and instead focused my eyes on my hands. I cleared my throat. “Relationship with… you. I… I guess what I’m trying to ask is…”

“Quit the bumbling, (L/N), I have places to be.”

I snapped my head up to study him. His tone was snappy and rude but his posture had the slightest note of… anxiety? I hadn’t seen that on him often. Seeing it built up my confidence.

“Right. Sorry.” My eyes wandered his form more, puzzling out his feelings. “My point is, do you mind if I tell Kotoko about a blossoming relationship between the two of us?” He stiffened further, his jaw tightening and his eyes widening. I was quick to explain. “Obviously I don’t expect you to actually date me, but if you could just not deny it in front of Kotoko, that would be-“

“Do you not want to date me?” He interrupted.

I froze, breaking my absentminded analysis to meet his nervous stare. “Wh…”

Byakuya immediately closed off, looking away from me. “Nevermind.”

My heart beat faster. “Wait, no. Are you…” I didn’t want to reveal my hand but, surely he already knew how I felt? He was practically as observant as me. I mustered an awkward laugh. “Is that a rhetorical question? Obviously we both know how I feel about you.”

He frowned, the tips of his ears turning pink. He opened his mouth only to soundlessly form shapes.

I watched his reaction with bewilderment. Did he really not know?? I took a step closer. “Byakuya, are you serious?”

He blinked down at me. “You… have feelings for me?”

“I thought it was painfully clear!” I gave an exasperated laugh. “Perhaps I give you more credit than you deserve.”

He spluttered before me—spluttered! “Well- I… I I had no idea.” His cheeks began to match his ears in hue. “You’ll… be delighted to hear that I feel the same way.”

My eyes widened in surprise. “Holy shit, really?”

He rolled his eyes. “Language.”

I grabbed his hands, yanking him closer to study his face. “You’re serious?”

“How many times do you plan to make me repeat myself?” He looked away from my eyes, his face reddening further.

I smiled giddily, his hands warm in mine. Maybe Kotoko was more observant than I gave her credit for.

Warriors of Hope POV

Kotoko watched them through the glass of the door, squealing when she saw them hold hands.

Masaru groaned, looking away. “Grooosss, why’d you tell her to do thaaat.”

She twirled around, clapping her hands together. “Because they’re in LOVE!! And people in LOVE should ALWAYS be TOGETHER!!!!”

Nagisa also grimaced at the sight. “Here I thought she was a professional. How unseemly… in front of us, no less.”

Kotoko bopped him lightly on the head, ignoring his indignant yelp. “You’re all being just awful! (Y/N)’s allowed to be happy, just like us!”

“You sure warmed up to her quick.”

She frowned, looking over at Jataro. He picked at his sleeves, not making eye contact. “Real bunch of demon-haters you guys are, duh huh… Falling for aaannyyyoonnnee’ss nice words…”

She furrowed her brow and opened her mouth to yell at him or call him ugly but stopped herself. She held her head up, looking down her nose at him primly. “I’d call you mean things but (Y/N) said that’s not cute. So just be quiet!”

Nagisa nodded, his hand white-knuckled on the table. “Well I don’t care about being cute. Jataro, (Y/N)’s risking a lot to give us a new chance. We owe her civility at the very least.”

Jataro frowned, tears welling up in his eyes. “You’re so mean to me.” His lips twitched up. “You hate me, don’t you? I’ll ruin your chances with (Y/N). After all, if there’s one bad apple, the rest are probably m-mmmooollldddyyy too.”

Masaru rummaged through the toys in the corner. “Whatever.” He picked up a soccer ball and grinned toothily. He dropped it onto his knee and tried to toss it to his other. It bounced off his leg but his spirit wasn’t dampened in the slightest as he ran over to retrieve it again. “You like her too, I can tell.”

Jataro huffed and plopped on the ground to draw, ignoring him. He heard rustling in his pocket as he sat down. He frowned, fishing through his pocket for the offending wrapper. His fingers met plastic and he pulled it out. A small orange candy twinkled up from his palm.

Kotoko gasped loudly, drawing his attention. She was looking out the window again, waving wildly. “She’s waving goodbye!! COME WAVE WITH ME.”

The others stood to join her but he did not. He stared down at the candy in wonder, unwrapping it carefully. It was from a company that didn’t have a factory in Towa City.

…It tasted nice. He hadn’t had their candy since before everything went down. He stared down at his violent drawing and crumpled it up, tossing it away. His blue crayon met the paper, drawing something nicer. Kinder. Stuff he used to draw… before. It was nice.

Masaru’s soccer ball collided with his head. “OOOOWW!” Jataro cried out, clutching his head dramatically.

“Ooops! Hehe, sorry Jataro.” Masaru picked up the ball with a grin.

a/n: pff thats as good of an ending as any ^^ hope u enjoyed :0!

263 notes · View notes

zenonaa · 3 years

Text

'The conglomerate taught him a dozen languages and how to play as many instruments. They trained him to operate multiple types of aircrafts, earn billions of dollars and not bat an eyelid as a rival company begged for mercy... However, when it came to developing feelings, that was treated in the same way as stabbing a fork into a plug socket, or offering to wash the dishes instead of letting the servants attend to them. It was common sense not to do those things.'

Fandom: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Fukawa Touko/Togami Byakuya Characters: Fukawa Touko, Togami Byakuya, Naegi Makoto Additional Tags: Togafuka Week Summary: Togami tries to prepare himself for his reunion with Fukawa.

Comments: Day 3 for TogaFuka Week! Fantasy/Kiss.

💗 Please like, share and comment if you enjoyed it! 💗

***

As the helicopter soars above the city, Byakuya visualises skyscrapers reaching toward the sky as if wanting to claim the blue expanse for itself, like that’s its God-given right. The buildings wouldn’t look out of place in a boss battle in a light gun video game. Makoto once compared them to the final level in an old zombie shooter that he played a few times at his local arcade.

Byakuya imagines the futuristic city, teeming with electricity and life, but the image lingers only for a couple of seconds before rusting, wilting, collapsing. In reality, Towa City is an industrial wasteland. Its railroad halo dips and splinters throughout, as if made from thorns, and the ghost of a bullet train explodes into dust that rains down on the city. Buildings have been amputated, leaving only stumps if nothing at all. Squinting, he discerns a car park that is now a graveyard, with graves instead of cars.

They land the helicopter in the concrete clearing behind a rundown hotel, the loud wailing of the rotorcraft’s blades slowing into pops before falling silent. No red carpet awaits them. A staircase unfolds from the helicopter’s doorway to the scarred ground. The sky is a red lipstick stain that fades into purple like a bruise.

And a short distance away from Byakuya stands Touko Fukawa.

Touko bounds toward him. “Byakuya-sama!”

Yes, he thinks, she would still call him that. Her wild mane of aubergine hair writhes with every step. Meanwhile, he glides over. His feet make no sound.

“I’ve missed you so much,” she says, stopping in front of him. She breathes in, filling her lungs with air. He brings a finger to her lips.

“Let me speak first.” Byakuya can feel her lips vibrate as words bubble in her mouth. After he lifts his finger off, her mouth hangs ajar but she stays quiet. Now it’s his turn to inhale deeply. “We have been on quite a journey. Before we met, I held the weight of the conglomerate and all the pressures involved, while you...”

The light against her lenses flashes warningly as her brow dips into a furrow.

“... had, and still have, your own,” he finishes. His teeth scrape against his lips. “When I entrusted you with Towa City, do you remember what I said?”

“No matter the distance, I will not feel a thing,” she recites.

“That’s right. You must understand that my creation was a business investment.” He swishes a hand through the air, maintaining eye contact. “Romance goes against my existence. At that time, though I had started opening up to the idea of relying on others, and letting others rely on me... I was not interested in... in romance.”

Her silence provides a clear sky that his voice fills with grey clouds. He coughs into his knuckles.

“Part of me rejected the idea of romance... And yet, to my surprise, during our time apart, where we could only speak in video calls, my heart grew fonder for you.”

Touko’s puzzled squint blooms into a wide-eyed stare. Its intensity burns his cheeks. Still, she doesn’t say a word. What if after she had drawn close enough, without the gleam on the computer screen on his face, she realised he is as cold as a monitor? Is that what is happening now? Aoi sometimes remarked that Touko was too good for him, and when Aoi became annoyed enough with something he did or said, she would add that Touko deserved better.

He used to never doubt himself, but for the first time in his life, he wonders if he is good enough.

It feels like he has taken his first step somewhere damp and mouldy, where the floorboards could give way at any moment. Without moving, his stomach drops as if he’s already falling. Byakuya’s tongue squirms in his mouth, as if trying to reverse the words that it already unleashed, but he can’t take them back.

Instead of trying to articulate his feelings, he decides to demonstrate them to her. He grabs her waist. Her head jolts back in surprise and a moment later, their lips bump together. For several long seconds, they stand stiffly, Byakuya’s hands on her body, Touko’s hands cupping air, until he needs to peel himself away to breathe.

She gazes at him, brow wrinkled, not smiling. Then she opens her mouth and asks, “Are you okay, Togami-kun?”

The voice does not belong to her. Byakuya blinks, fracturing the concrete, the sky, her body, revealing his true surroundings. Opposite him sits Makoto, the two of them seated in a helicopter.

“You zoned out there for a good few minutes,” says Makoto.

Byakuya responds with a grimace.

To bat away the encroaching silence, Makoto chirps, “I can’t believe in an hour, we’ll finally be reunited with Komaru and Fukawa-san.”

In response, Byakuya gives a solitary hum. Makoto’s smile wanes.

“Are you motion sick?” he asks Byakuya.

“No,” Byakuya says more harshly than intended, the syllable cracking the still air like a whip and making Makoto tense. He flattens his tone and adds, “I’m in thought. That’s all.”

“About the reunion?”

Byakuya nods.

“It’ll be fine,” Makoto assures him with conviction that puts Byakuya on the defensive.

“What am I supposed to say to her?”

‘Her’ being Touko, of course. The conglomerate taught him a dozen languages and how to play as many instruments. They trained him to operate multiple types of aircrafts, earn billions of dollars and not bat an eyelid as a rival company begged for mercy. With the matter of future heirs, they instructed him on what to look out for on female applicants’ forms while choosing potential mothers. However, when it came to developing feelings, that was treated in the same way as stabbing a fork into a plug socket, or offering to wash the dishes instead of letting the servants attend to them. It was common sense not to do those things.

And yet here Byakuya was, spending the journey to Towa City mentally rehearsing how he was going to confess to a woman who had gained the power to make his heart swell too big for his chest. The conglomerate could not have prepared him for such a woman. Such an intelligent woman. Such an empathetic woman. Such a loyal woman.

Most of all, a woman who drew strength from what the conglomerate called weakness. Love.

“I mean... you can say hello?” suggests Makoto.

Byakuya’s steely gaze clenches Makoto. “Then what?”

“Like... ‘How are you?’”

“I can’t treat this like a regular meeting, as if we had only last seen each other at the end of work the previous day,” says Byakuya.

“Why not?”

“This one is different.”

As Makoto’s eyes flicker, he drinks in the tension in Byakuya’s shoulders, the tightness in his fists, and says, “Ah. I see.”

Though Makoto must have known for some time now. He and the others had started alluding to Byakuya’s feelings for Touko before Byakuya was even in denial about them, back when Byakuya didn’t know what he was experiencing, or what was making his stomach flutter.

Evening has dyed the sky orange, darkness creeping in at the edges. Byakuya stares at it through the window. His unsmiling reflection leaves a faint imprint on the glass. Silence swirls around them, hanging over their heads like the rotating blades of the helicopter.

“Are you going to tell her?” asks Makoto, and he doesn’t need to elaborate.

“I should,” Byakuya replies.

“You can try a pick-up line.” Without having to look at him, Byakuya can hear the grin seeping into Makoto’s tone. “For example... Do you like raisins? How would you feel about a date?”

Byakuya’s reflection glares as Makoto carries on.

“If I could rearrange the alphabet, I’d put ‘U’ and ‘I’ together. Or - ”

“That’s enough,” Byakuya says with a shudder, raising a hand. “I aim for my demeanour to be calm and composed. I do not intend to act like a fool, throwing out hackneyed lines.”

“Sorry, sorry. But if you don’t mind me saying, you’re overthinking it, Togami-kun.”

This earns Makoto a look from Byakuya. The curve of Makoto’s lips is slimmer now, but still holding on.

“In these sorts of situations, it’s best not to use your brain...” Makoto taps himself on the head. “... but to follow your heart.” His hand shifts to his heart and pats there next.

Byakuya tightens his lips and returns his gaze to the window.

“Easy for you to say,” he mutters.

The helicopter lands by the hotel that Touko and Komaru have been living in. If not for the lit windows and neon sign, the dark column would have blended in with the night. Steel bars cage the building, mostly unbent. Byakuya’s attention fixes longest on the sign that flashes ‘TOWA HOTEL’, ‘TOWA HOTEL’, pulsing like his heartbeat, reminding him over and over where he is.

He balls his sweaty hands into fists. He can do this. ‘Follow your heart,’ Makoto had said, and his heart has been caged for so long. It’s time that he freed it.

As in his imagined scenarios, Touko runs over, her arms spread as if about to take. Byakuya tenses, for a moment thinking that he has to catch her before she flies away again.

Fortunately, she stops in front of him, her feet rooted to the ground. “Byakuya-sama!”

Byakuya swears he feels the spray of her spit, but it might just be his sweat. Makoto digs him gently in the ribs, quirks his lips, then walks toward Komaru. At no point does Touko’s eyes stray from Byakuya, who lifts his chin and adjusts his tie. Low laughter simmers in Touko’s mouth.

“I can finally smell you...” She hugs herself. “It has been so long.”

In the past, he would have told her to shut up after saying something like that, but that doesn’t seem appropriate now. Such a comment used to come across as vulgar, and maybe it still does, slightly, but he has grown accustomed to the vines that her existence has curled around him. His tongue feels thick in his mouth as he tries to think of a response.

“Well, I can smell you,” he says.

This prompts Touko to shrink back and worry her lip with her teeth. “D-Do I...? I showered earlier today. Argh, did Komaru swap my shampoo for dog p-?”

Touko cuts herself off with a groan and shakes her head. Byakuya reaches a hand toward her.

“I mean you smell good.” He immediately cringes. Good. He said, ‘good.’ Her brow creases, whether it be from confusion or from hearing such a lame adjective, and he adds quickly, “You smell like...”

Byakuya breathes in but finds himself unable to smell her, so he leans toward her so he can. She gasps. He straightens sharply.

Time ticks as Byakuya mentally flips through the scripts he had rehearsed on the helicopter.

“Romance goes against my existence,” he says.

No, wait. He hadn’t meant to say it like that.

“Went against,” he clarifies. “Remember when I said ‘No matter the distance, I will not feel a thing’?”

Touko nods slowly, frowning. His head fills with steam, rendering it practically useless, which leaves him one other organ to depend on. His heart.

“Do you like raisins?” he says. “I’d put ‘U’ and ‘I’ together.”

Her troubled expression gives way to concern. “Byakuya-sama...?”

Byakuya lets out a frustrated groan and slaps himself on the forehead. “What I want to say is...”

She springs onto tiptoe and pecks his lips.

In that moment of contact, time stops. No more than a second could have passed, but by the time she returns her heels to the ground, he feels like he has been flung up into the sky before crashing back down again, his head spinning.

While he stands frozen, she wraps her arms around him.

“I understand,” she says muffled into his chest.

He hesitates, then hugs her back, and presses his lips against the top of her head. She smells like strawberries.

#togafuka #togafukaweek #touko fukawa #byakuya togami #danganronpa #dr3 #fanfiction #one shot #makoto naegi

25 notes · View notes

katavicbun · 3 years

Text

As promised (actually I don’t think I promised it but whatev) here is the girl talk snippet from “It’s Not Over. We’re Not Done.” chapter 15. If you haven’t read it ( https://archiveofourown.org/works/28798473/chapters/70625382 plu plug plug) then you’ll be confused, but like... if you want contextless post-DR3 “Nagito has friends” fluff, who am I to stop you?

Back in the Jabberwock killing game, Nagito almost enjoyed the motives that they were given. As soon as the 77th class had been thrown into the thick of it, Nagito had been beside himself with anticipation at seeing brilliant Ultimate hope persevere against the depths of tragedy. But he didn’t think he’d be happy about a new killing motive again.

Granted, the reason was much less nefarious this time around.

The First Blood Perk: there would be no trial or punishment for the first blackened. They would be free; or whatever that meant in the context of the simulation.

Nagito was looking forward to telling Hajime the relatively good news, but once his game-watching shift was over, it looked like Kazuichi had beaten him to it.

From what Nagito could hear at a distance, it sounded like Kazuichi was putting a bit too much emphasis on how “Kokichi is being an absolute dick to Kiibo”, but the tension in Hajime’s expression lessened with the actually-important news.

Even when Kazuichi left, Nagito stayed where he was, indecisively shifting from foot to foot. Hajime hadn’t reacted well at all when the two’s relationship had been outed the day prior. He was slowly warming up to showing casual affection when they were alone, but when others could see them…

Hajime finally noticed Nagito fidgeting on the other side of the hall, his face softening further, a small but genuine smile gracing his face. The sight went straight to Nagito’s heart, speeding it up to double-time.

He wasn’t sure how he’d gotten this lucky.

But before either could call out a greeting, two hands slapped over Nagito’s eyes as someone leaped onto his back.

“Ah?” Nagito said in subdued alarm.

“Nagichan spotted! Deploy, deploy!” Presumably Ibuki screeched in his ear, as he bent under her weight.

“Oh, wonderful! I was worried we would not be able to meet today,” Sonia chirped, somewhere to Nagito’s left. When Ibuki slid off and he regained his sight, Nagito saw the two, plus Komaru, beaming at him expectantly.

“Do you… need something…?” Nagito blanked.

“Uh, yeah!” Komaru exclaimed, as if he were missing something very, very obvious. “We haven’t talked about-“

She cut herself off when she spotted Hajime in earshot, looking as baffled as Nagito felt.

“Ha! Ha! Hajiman!” Ibuki hooted, “Nagi is needed in another castle!”

She and Komaru grabbed both of Nagito’s arms and tugged him back in the direction he’d come from.

Murder, maybe? No, probably not.

Sonia smiled brightly and gave a brisk wave to Hajime. “Do not worry! We shall return him to you soon!”

Komaru and Ibuki giggled madly at her word choice as they dragged Nagito away. He wasn’t positive, but he was pretty sure Hajime’s face began turning a concerning shade of white.

Komaru threw the door open when they reached her and Toko’s room. The three girls filed in without hesitation, but Nagito stopped at the doorway. Wasn’t it inappropriate for a man to enter a girl’s room? It wasn’t like he had ever done that before. Nor had he ever wanted to. However, the protest never had the chance to leave his mouth before he was pulled in, too, the door slamming behind him.

It came as no surprise that Toko was already inside, curled up under the covers. She seldom moved ever since they were locked inside the hotel, still wracked with guilt and self-horror from what she had done to save Komaru from Tsumugi’s crowd. From who she had let Genocide Jack kill.

“Hello, Toko,” Nagito said quietly. “Is Nami bothering you?”

Toko made a small noise of negation.

The only parts of her that Nagito could see was the tangled purple mess of hair sprawled across the pillow, and her hand, absently petting his dog lying beside her. Evidently, at some point during the past two hours or so, Nami had slipped inside, like the spoiled pet she was.

“Tell us everything!” Komaru urged excitedly, jumping onto the mattress to sit with her girlfriend. Sonia knelt delicately on the floor on Toko’s other side, and Ibuki flopped down next, yanking a very confused Nagito with her.

“Everything...? Komaru, we were on the same shift,” Nagito reminded her.

“Huh? No, not about the…” Komaru trailed off. It seemed like their merry group of twenty-three was split down the middle when it came to how to deal with their situation. Hajime couldn’t stop talking about it, but Komaru was trying very hard to talk about literally anything else.

Ibuki interrupted. “So are you and Hajiman, like, ooey-gooey lovey-dovey, or are you…” She made a variety of random sound effects that Nagito was afraid to interpret.

Sonia and Komaru were leaning forward with sparkling eyes and wide grins.

Ah.

“I… um,” Nagito stuttered, completely unsure of how to answer. The room suddenly felt very warm. And small. “Not… Not the second one. I think.”

“Ooey-gooey boyfriends!” Ibuki squished his cheeks as Komaru and Sonia shot him with rapid-fire questions.

“When!?”

“Where?”

“Who confessed!?”

“Oh! Have you kissed?”

Nagito managed to pry Ibuki away from his face. She bounced away, unbothered. “A week ago, in the hotel hallway, it… depends, and…” Nagito stopped. What was he even allowed to disclose? So much of this was uncharted territory; he still wasn’t used to having friends in the first place. He still wasn’t used to even calling them friends, despite them insisting it was so.

“He’s blushing! They totally have!” Komaru accused proudly.

“My goodness, the both of you must be so sweet!” Sonia clasped her hands together under her chin. “What did you talk about?”

Nagito had replayed the moment an inappropriate amount of times in his own head; maybe it would be nice to talk about it out loud. And they were asking. “Hmm… Hajime said he loved me, and let me kiss him.”

The three girls had frozen smiles on their faces, like they were expecting more.

Ibuki blinked. “Ah… aww?”

“I’m sorry. Was that too much?” Nagito frowned. He was trying to get better at determining when he had been talking for too long.

“D-details…” Toko mumbled. So she was listening.

“It… was nice…?” Nagito ventured.

“What did you talk about?” Komaru prompted. Sonia and Ibuki nodded.

Oh. Just a little more, then. “I told him that I fell in love with the Hajime inside Izuru and the Izuru inside Hajime. Then he requested that I stop saying things like that if I continued rejecting his advances. I reminded him that it was for his own wellbeing, and he told me that for whatever reason, he believed that I wasn’t an utter detriment to his quality of life. He even said he was sad when I died!” Nagito closed his eyes dreamily at the memory. “He said many kind things, and allowed me to kiss him. He smiled!”

The girls looked considerably less excited.

“I… I am… more confused, somehow.” Sonia cocked her head, her eyebrows upturned.

“Wait, hold on, did Hajime say he loved you before?” Komaru asked. “When you were in Towa with us, you said it was one-sided.”

“L-lying…” Toko muttered.

“No, not on purpose!” Nagito quickly clarified. He tried not to lie when he could. “Hajime also said it on the boat ride back to Jabberwock, after we escaped Aozora.”

“Well well well!?” Ibuki shook her fists, pumped up again at the prospect of more gossip.

That memory wasn’t quite as pleasant.

“When Hajime was fixing my prosthetic, he wanted to know why I sacrificed myself for him, and allowed myself to be captured in his place. Of course, I reminded him that I loved him,” Nagito recounted. It seemed like an obvious question at the time. Now that he had hindsight, though, he wondered if it was simply a way to steer the conversation. “He said he felt the same. He tried to kiss me, but…” Nagito winced.

“It’s not that I don’t want to. I just can’t let you. Because I was right, wasn’t I?”

“You think I’m doing this because of Izuru!?”

Nagito shook his head. “...Well. Like I said. It was… for his own good.”

Sonia gasped and covered her mouth. “Oh, Nagito, I… I am so sorry!”

“You’re… sorry?” Nagito repeated. Not quite the reaction he was expecting.

“I told you that Hajime was fixing your arm because I thought you wanted to talk,” Sonia explained mournfully. “I knew how you felt, and I could tell Hajime had feelings for you as well. You both acted so odd afterwards. I should have picked it together!”

“‘Put’,” Toko corrected.

Calling his and Hajime’s actions “odd” was a bit of an understatement. Hajime tried to explain himself, and reconnect, and care for Nagito. But Nagito pushed him away. He was cruel.

“Um, question?” Komaru spoke up hesitantly. “You keep saying that avoiding him was for his own good. What do you mean, exactly?”

“Is it Nagichan’s luck?” Ibuki asked.

Nagito shook his head. If it were anyone else, or if Hajime was 100% “Hajime”, it would have been. Something terrible would have happened to him, just like his parents. But Hajime’s own Ultimate Luck nullified the negative aspects.

Well. Not Hajime’s luck. It was-

“You are talking about the simulation, then?” Sonia offered after a pause.

No, not really. Nagito wasn’t in the mood to correct her, though. Plus, the Jabberwock killing game was a massive roadblock between the two of them.

“I never saw the simulation, though. What happened?” Komaru asked.

Sonia and Ibuki avoided Nagito’s eyes.

The Jabberwock killing was also the massive elephant in the room.

They all waited for Nagito to explain. He didn’t. He figured the extent of his actions would best be described by the ones he hurt.

“Ah. Well,” Sonia said after his silence became apparent. “Nagito, um… he was a little…”

“Wacko?” Ibuki supplied.

Sonia looked at her sharply. Nagito nodded in encouragement.

“Nagichan tried to hurt Imposter. And everyone. And Hajiman... is also part of ‘everyone’?” Ibuki continued with uncharacteristic discomfort. Her details were very lacking. Nagito thought it would be best to fill in a bit.

“Not out of self-preservation, either. I simply thought that by introducing despair, it would persuade our classmates to fight for their own brilliant hopes. When I failed, I tried to convince the others to do the same,” Nagito explained. The words were familiar, but even he noticed that his tone lacked the enthusiasm he once spoke with. It felt less like the ramblings of a devotee, and more like an objective, emotionless retelling. “I found out our past identities as the Remnants of Despair, and used my own life to try and take theirs. After all, it was the only use I could think of for myself.”

By the deafening silence following, Nagito came to the conclusion that this was not the planned topic of discussion.

This was all news to Komaru. Still, she didn’t look surprised. It probably sounded very consistent with her and Toko’s experience with him.

“But we have forgiven you!” Sonia insisted, covering his hand with hers. “You have proven that you are a good man, many times now. And… we have all done… terrible, terrible things.” Her voice dipped down at the end of her sentence. As pure-hearted as she was now, Sonia, too, was a Remnant of Despair.

“Hajiman totally thinks so, too!” Ibuki piped up, the positive momentum picking up again. “He’s gone gaga!”

“First impressions aren’t everything, either!” Komaru added. “I mean, look at me and Toko. The first time we met, we were totally different to each other than we are now.”

“It wasn’t the first time we met,” Nagito blurted out.

Oops.

“You… knew each other when you were students?” Sonia deduced. “I did not know that.”

“Oh no, Nagichan didn’t like Reserve Courses…” Ibuki recalled. There went the positive mood again. However…

“I met him when he was no longer a student,” Nagito corrected, his tone flattening out. He met him when he was no longer Hajime.

“I see. Hajime feels guilty because Izuru hurt you?” Sonia asked quietly.

Yes, but not the way she meant it.

Nagito wasn’t planning on explaining much further, but Toko spoke again, her voice muffled under the blankets.

“W-where did you g-go when you l-left Towa? Th-the f-first time I-I mean.”

Nagito’s head shot up.

“Wh-what Tsumugi said…” Toko murmured.

“Nagito Komaeda, Ultimate Lucky Student number two, psychopath hope-bitch, Izuru’s personal puppy dog!”

A sharp inhale from Sonia, a gawk from Ibuki, a sympathetic sound from Komaru.

The questions popping around in their minds were practically audible, but they knew enough not to voice them. It wasn’t like they didn’t understand what Toko was implying, either.

Nagito felt that familiar, peaceful feeling of resignation fill his body, pasting a blank, cheerful smile on his face.

“I’m sorry, I know this isn’t what you planned on talking about today. Though, if it’s any consolation, I’ve found this conversation enlightening. It’s good to remember your roots, isn’t it?” Nagito mused. “‘Hajime and Nagito’... it’s pretty nonsensical and twisted, hmm? His claim to care for me is… impossible. And so is yours-”

Nagito was cut off when Sonia tackled him.

“Do not dare finish that thought!” She cried, squeezing him much tighter than he figured she would be able to. “I do not claim to know how Hajime feels, but I know how I do!”

“Sonia…?” Nagito blinked, trying and failing to untangle himself.

“You are sweet and kind. You saved my life, even after how we have treated you!” She insisted, cheek squished against his shoulder.

Ibuki leaped at Nagito from his other side, nearly knocking him and Sonia to the ground. “Ibuki’s crazy, too, it’s a-okay! And she was wrong, Nagichan would never hurt his neighbors’ pets. Nami-Mami is so happy!”

The dog’s tail thumped on the bed at the sound of her name.

“Plus, Nagi’s got the voice of a princess, and he lets me play with his floof!” To illustrate, Ibuki plunged one of her hands into his hair and ruffled madly. Nagito really didn’t like it when (most) people touched his hair, but he was too surprised at the moment to protest.

Two more arms wrapped around his shoulders as Komaru laid on her stomach to reach them from the bed. “I know I haven’t really known you for too long, but I wanna get to know you more. We didn’t get off on a good foot, but you’re so different now!”

A hand landed on his head.

“I-I j-just do wh-what Komaru does… sh-she makes friends w-with w-weird people, b-but…” Toko muttered.

Nagito felt tears prick at his eyes, but he was too cocooned with affection to be able to wipe his face. “Ah… that’s… thank you,” he murmured.

He jumped when he felt a light slap on his scalp.

“Also, come on! Hajime is totally head over heels!” Komaru scolded playfully. “When you talked to him on the computer back in Towa, he was so happy you were okay, I thought he was gonna, like, explode!”

“I-it was gross,” Toko agreed.

“And Hajiman tried so hard to rescue you!” Ibuki squealed. Nagito flinched at her proximity to his ear. “Ibuki heard he carried Nagichan all the way back to the bus. Like a knight and a princess!”

Nagito wasn’t sure he liked Ibuki’s insistence of him being a princess, but she meant well.

“And I have never seen Hajime as happy as he was when you were together.” Sonia said, pulling back to put a hand on Nagito’s cheek. “We are not defined by our actions in the past. Who you are now is most important, and the person that you are now is the one we all love.”

Being loved: it was an experience that Nagito never really had. Of course he wouldn’t recognize it.

“After everything… I think you should allow yourself to believe what you are told.” Sonia smiled gently. “Don’t you?”

Change didn’t come easy. It didn’t come quick. It came in increments, in short bursts, in relapses and two steps back, and in growth.

One gesture couldn’t change everything. But it could help the process.

“I… I love you all, too,” Nagito said thickly.

********************

Nagito knew he’d made Hajime lose his cool quite a bit back in the day. But not like this. Never like this.

The hole Hajime had punched through the wall watched them like a single black eye, the resulting drops of blood on the carpet almost visible, even in the dark. Hajime’s eyes were puffy, and the bandage on his hand was bulky and rough.

When Hajime had gotten out of the shower, Nagito was laying on the bed and feigning sleep. He wasn’t sure what he could even say to Hajime, and decided that acting was the least offensive thing to do. He kept his eyes shut, even when he felt Hajime’s bore into him. Even when Hajime laid down and clung onto him for dear life. Even when Hajime hooked his legs like a vice around one of Nagito’s, and gripped his shirt enough to make it ride up, and buried his face so far into the crook of Nagito’s neck that he worried his breathing was compromised.

Maybe it was to prevent Nagito from leaving and trying to sacrifice himself. Again.

Or…

“I think you should allow yourself to believe what you are told. Don’t you?”

...Or maybe Hajime just wanted reassurance that Nagito was there. Maybe he just wanted to be with him.

“I love you,” Hajime whispered shakily to the supposedly-sleeping boy, his breath warm on his skin.

Hajime wanted Nagito to be scared about the prospect of his own demise. But how could he be?

Right now, Nagito had everything he wanted. He had… friends. A makeshift family. He had Hajime.

For once, Nagito was happy.

#out of context the last part sounds like domestic abuse i can't stress enough how much it's not #it's not over we're not done on ao3 #danganronpa #Nagito Komaeda #Hajime Hinata #sonia nevermind #ibuki mioda #komaru naegi #toko fuwaka #komahina #hinakoma #fluff #angst #fanfic

77 notes · View notes

everythingblreview · 3 years

Text

Slow Damage review 2.0 Part 1

It’s 16 pages actually

Hello I’m back and instead of actually writing a new review of a game, or playing a new game that’s a lie I’m playing more than one VN at the same time right now. I’ve been thinking a lot about slow damage lately and wanted to write my full thoughts/analysis on it. For this occasion, I replayed the game. This will be full of spoiler of everything in the game as well as the spoiler of the short story.

Disclaimer: This is MY opinion, I’m not wanting to start a discussion, this is just how I experienced the game. Not everything here will be in a positive light and I don’t hold back from criticize what I didn’t like. This is a fictional game so please don’t attack me. But if you are fine with me babbling 16 pages about the game, you can go ahead. Important to note: Towa is my favourite character, so my thought on the routes are all Towa centered

(I probaly forgot some stuff but please excuse the game is really long)

I will start from the unlocked route and work toward the true route. Starting with Taku~

Taku

After replaying Taku’s route I noticed some differences to my first time playing.

First his route was my second favourite in the game the first time I played it, but replaying it, it was not really interesting anymore. His story is all about him developing drugs for Toono because of his deb he made so he could study to become a doctor, but if you know already about this part there is nothing else to really investigate. His backstory with his mother is ok, he feels guilty for stuff he done in his route but that’s all there is, when you already know the secret Taku is hiding, there is not much left, that’s why is lacks something if you replay it.

The second thing is his relationship with Towa, before I talk about the problem, I personally have with it I will talk about the things I did like: Taku already was protective of Towa since he was a child, and his feeling developed into more later on, from what Taku said we can assume his feelings turned into “like” after the incident with Asakura. Towa feeling to Taku developed during the time they spent together when they were both locked in the building. Taku was someone he always felt save with, back in his horrible childhood when no one was there for him, only Taku(it was probably the only time he could get away from his crazy mother), and after the fear of losing Taku he noticed he has deeper feelings for him (at this point we can’t say that is romantic love because Towa doesn’t understand this feeling, but Taku is special for him it’s canon don’t attack me). The development part of their feelings was nice and felt pretty realistic. Secondly, I like how they dealt with Taku falling for a guy. Taku said he wasn’t interested in the same gender from the beginning, but he didn’t say stuff like “I’m not gay, I’m straight” or something like that. He just said he is not experienced with it, and he didn’t just go for it after Towa “attacked” him and was still unsure at this point, and only later when he was sure he had romantic felling he went for it, which was quite nice. Now to for the things that I can’t get over and ruin the relationship for me. First, from the true route we learn that Taku has been lying about Towa past the whole time, (telling him his mother was a great woman) so this relationship is already based on a lie. Towa mother was not a great woman like Taku tells, she is the whole reason Towa has suffered his whole life, and while Taku may not know the everything, he knows what Towa went through but still he keeps his mouth close. There is a scene after the confession scene, where Taku wanted to say something (probably about his past) after they talked about his mother, but decides not to even after Towa asked him about it. In the end after he gets released from prison Towa asked him again and he acts like he has no idea what he is talking about and just says something else. And this brings me to the thing that annoys me the most: How Taku deals with Towa’s mental health problems, or to say it simple, he just doesn’t. The first thing I noticed when I replayed it, Taku is acting like he doesn’t know about it, even though he does. Always saying how Towa behaviour (about him drinking, smoking and sleeping with guys) “was always like this” and saying that “your heart is still dead”. Taku you know exactly how horrible his past is how can you say such stuff??? He always tells Towa how he should stop doing it, but he doesn’t think about doing something to prevent it. I know that he is worried about him but the only thing he deals with are Towas wounds. His wounds may heal but his heart doesn’t if you keep putting only bandages on him Taku. He is really bad at dealing with mental problems, his way to get over it is just not to talk about, in the hope it will go away at some point but in Towa’s case it won’t ever go away, it is destroying him slowly from the inside.

He is also overprotective of Towa in a bad way, putting a chip in Towa after getting rid of Asakuras shitty DIY wings and even going as far as TRYING TO KILL Towa and I though Rei will be the yandere after Tonno tells him he won’t let Towa go after both of the get kidnapped by Toono. I understand that he wants to protect Towa and it is indeed dangerous to let Towa do what he wants because he doesn’t care for himself, but Towa need some kind of freedom, he is not stupid. He acts like Towa is his thing and I didn’t like this part. And the last thing, that left me in a uncomfortable feeling is in the very end he says Towa causes to many problem that why you should not leave him alone, but the goal would actually be to heal Towa to a point, where he does not need help anymore but we never get to it here sadly. (and please stop with the housewife Towa look in the end it hurts my eyes)

I also don’t like the age gap of 20 years in the relationship, because I cant deal with the thought of one person dying way before and leaving the other person behind but that’s a me problem.

The first time I was not sure what to think about Taku’s route but after knowing all this stuff and replaying the route, I just can’t like this pairing sorry.

All the things above are only about Taku and Towa’s relationship, I do like Taku as a person and I enjoyed that he is like a father figure toward Towa and like a family for him. It’s really cute that he really cares for Rei too and treats him like a son better than Rei’s trash father ever could like they are a small family.

Rei

From beginning we get to know Rei as Towa’s and Taku’s best friend, who speaks like a woman and acts a little like it, we also learn that he enjoys fighting and participate in deathmatches. His route is about his struggle with the deb his father (who is a piece of trash) has and his own gender. From the second chapter we learn that Rei is a pure soul, he is a good boy that does not see the bad in human. (Compared to Towa who had a bad feeling from the start) and Rei tells us that in his past he was always mistaken for a girl.

The first time playing his route, the whole thing about his gender felt really sudden but after replaying his route, they were some hints that Rei does struggle with it. Like him telling about his past and him asking Towa what is “manly”. Rei doesn’t want his friends to get involved with his problems that’s why he tries to keep his distance, but Towa is someone he can feel at peace with. Rei’s gender struggle comes from the fact that his parents treat him as a girl when he was a child, it really messed him up because he starts thinking that he was a girl, but still got kicked out by his father after telling him he is gay. Rei hated his own gender even going as far as trying to cut off his… in front of Towa. But through his love for fighting, he realized that he wants to be a man, and after talking (and fighting for fun) with Towa he decides he will now live and act as a man.

Not gonna lie, I really like Rei for his feminine side, though I never thought of him as a woman and while it makes me a little sad that he doesn’t want to be like it, I can accept that he wants to be a man, because in the end the “fem Rei” was never real. He was forced into this feminine roll and that was not the real Rei. What I like about his character is that, while he has his love for violence, he is still a innocent and pure soul. He really cares for others and only wants his best for his friends. (He is also the person, who is looking for true love and doesn’t sleep with others for fun) Even though his father is a big shit he still wants to help his father so he doesn’t start working with child trafficking again. He knows Towa since middle school and was always interested in him, but romantically only after the whole thing with Mizuno, when Towa protected him.

What I really didn’t like the first time I played it is that, while you can really feel that Rei likes Towa, Towa doesn’t share the same strong attraction. It felt more like Towa just agreed to this relationship in the end, but replaying it, I noticed that Towa does care for him in his own way, the first time it’s difficult to say because you don’t understand Towa’s personality. Towa always agrees do help Rei if he asked him for something and he worries about him. The relationship of all the pairings starts at the end of the game so it’s always difficult to say how it works out, but Towa did have a pleasant feeling after Rei’s confession and after they slept together. I want to see more development on Towa’s side because compared to his feeling for Taku in his route it felt weaker with Rei (for me), hopefully they explore it in the drama cd.

While Rei does say some things like Taku to Towa (that I didn’t like) I can’t blame him for it because he doesn’t know Towa’s past.

Regarding Rei’s personality, I hope they don’t change to much about him, because it would be stupid to make a character and then change him after everyone already start liking him like the way he was. They changed his way of speaking (what you probably won’t notice if you don’t understand Japanese) which if fine, doesn’t bother me but if he will start saying stuff like “I can’t eat cake anymore because only woman do” …. Yeah please no. and he cut his beautiful long hair short noooo and it looks so bad please change it We have to wait and see how Rei’s change will affect him in the end, and I want to see how their relationship will develops especially on Towa’s side

Madarame

I wanted to replay everything, just to make sure I didn’t forget anything, but with Madarame’s route I just had to give um in the middle. The first time I played it I went through it without problems because I was expecting something from it, sadly it never happened, but this time it was just like playing a never-ending bad end, and I just felt so sad that I had to stop playing. And now I can confidently say, I hate everything about this route. And I did give this route a chance because I don’t like to go into a game thinking I won’t like character, I try my best to understand the story and characters, but it was no use here. I just don’t understand why such a route was needed to for a character like Towa. Knowing how much Towa was abused in the past and that he suffers from extreme mental trauma because of this makes everything worse, this route really brings out the worst of Towa’s mental health issues.

Starting from the beginning we learn that Towa and Madarame used to hang out together and Towa did feel good hanging out with him (they were not in a relationship and there were no romantic feelings which is confirmed). Towa tells us that this was in the past and that he is not this person anymore, also he tells us that he doesn’t like following orders and doesn’t like treatment from Madarame, that’s why dealing with him is hard and after understanding this himself, he wanted to keep his distance. Of course this is not in Madarame’s favour, he want his “pet” all to himself (He even said Towa need an “owner”).So he kidnaps him and tries to break Towa, to let him remember how he used to be. For this he uses violence and treats Towa like shit. We know that he knows about Towa’s abuse in his childhood and still he uses the same horrible methods as Towa’s mother did, taking away his freedom and chaining him to a place, keeping him in silence which he hates. Raping him (of course Towa let it happen because he is used to it) and slowly breaking his mind so Towa starts thinking he needs Madarame. When Towa says something against him, he got angry or just straight up beats him. Towa has no freedom in this “relationship” it only goes the way Mada want it. There is no communication it’s just a typical “alpha male” top and controlled bottom dynamic between them. It was so sad seeing how Towa went against his friends after he spent some time under Madarame’s influence.

In the beginning Towa is so desperate that he would rather die than to be with Madarame, and I don’t know why we have to think this is “romantic” or some shit like that? Its funny how they tried to include them acting like a couple in the second half of the route. Like Madarame said Towa doesn’t need a collar anymore, sure because he is now manipulated into thinking he need Madarame. I will never forgive him for the emotional and physical abuse he let Towa go through in the beginning.

Madarame himself just feels like he is not even human, this guy has no feeling and his feeling for Towa are like a feeling you have for your pet (or better to say animal? Because you would treat your pet better) and he treats him like a pet. (I’m really not a fan of the whole “your mine” “you belong to me” thinking, human are not objects, just because you decide to be with someone doesn’t mean you are their property) I understand they wanted to go for the “he lives in the present not the past and he is honest and doesn’t lie” thing but it made him feel like he has no feeling at all. Showing that he likes cats made no sense to me, because what’s the point if he treats a cat better than Towa? Did they try to make him look like he has a loveable side? Because it sure didn’t feel like it for me. Trying to make abuse ok by showing that this guy likes animals in that case it’s totally ok …yeah sure not.

He really did everything to manipulate Towa into thinking that he needs to be on “this side”, the side that always abused him, by slowly breaking Towa. Towa himself has no understanding for right or wrong, he just does what he thinks is right for him in this moment, that’s how his brain works.

Madarame says he and Towa are the same because both want violence, but I can only disagree, they couldn’t be any different Towa’s love for violence is a reflection of his abuse as a child, something that was done to him and he now thinks he needs, it’s something he does to try to cope with his trauma, his love for it is not real. While Mada on the other hand, likes it because who knows why it’s not like we ever get to learn anything about this guy because he never says anything. This guy wants nothing and is not interested in anything, I don’t get what I’m supposed to like here. The route ends with Towa and Madarame running away, leaving Towa life, his home and his friends that tried to protect him, to live their life on the streets fighting and enjoying violence, and for me this is the opposite of a good end, it’s just hurt knowing Towa is forever stuck in the circle of violence. (and blond hair really looks bad on him)

I played a lot of bl games and there is always abuse, rape and manipulation involved in almost every bl game, but this has to be the worst case of abuse I ever had to go through and this is coming from a person who likes Mink.

I may said a lot of negative stuff about Taku, but compared to Mada, Taku is an angel send from heaven Funny because Madarame says Taku is trash. The theme was to throw your past away and living in the present, but it felt more like let’s embrace the mental illness and violence.

(the only thing worth going through this hell one time is seeing Mayu, Kotarou and Towa in a suit, especially Towa looks very hot, boi)

The route had an interesting start, and they had a good backstory to write something good with all the stuff with Kaga and so one, but they did absolutely nothing with it and chose to make it about abuse, rape and manipulation, the easy way to force a “romance”(because there is no) into it, and in the year 2021 I expect just something better from it, consider how well the rest of the game is written. N+C really had to bring this rape abuse combination back, didn’t they? They got rid of some bl clichés and I’m thankful for it but we are only half through it, they still need time.

The route just felt extremely disappointing and made me feel horrible.

24 notes · View notes

inuyashaha · 2 years

Text

Yokai Love

I've been happy to see some honest, critical analysis of Yashahime in the last few days. For much of the last few months, any discussion of the show tended to swing between glowing reviews that chose to gloss over the story's problems or unhinged attacks based on really flawed interpretations of characters (and/or a need to be the "winner" in the game of...shipping? watching cartoons? I don't get the drive that inspired some of the haters).

After a week's reflection, one argument that still really bothers me is that we have been told that we need to understand that Sesshomaru is a yokai, and yokais love differently. Their concept of affection is not the same as a human's concept, so we need to, in the words of Moroha, not overthink it.

I don't agree.

The story is written by humans FOR humans. It's one thing to have Sesshomaru hesitant or a little reserved, but the human audience needs to recognize what is happening on the screen as love. Besides, we were shown MANY (too many) other yokai who had fallen in love and behaved in ways a human might recognize...Zero, Homamura, the snake yokai lady, the grain god guy, even SESSHOMARU'S MOTHER had some kind of reaction to the mention of her husband, and she also was shown to be proud of her granddaughters. Apparently, Toga had deep passion and love with Inuyasha's mom. Showing love and affection has never been something yokai do not do. Sesshomaru was repressed as hell during the original, a combination of his upbringing and what he saw as his father's betrayal making him standoffish and cold. However, he was never without feeling. At the end, especially, he reacts strongly to Rin's second death, and his relief over her being brought to life was not secret. He caressed her face and "smiled" at her in front of Jaken, Kohaku, and his own mother. He is not unmoved by strong emotion, but Sesshomaru in Yashahime was stone-faced for most of the two seasons.

On the one hand, I do think Sesshomaru's devotion to Rin was more or less shown (more or less--I have other things to say about how their love in general was portrayed, but this is going to be long enough as it is), but his parental affection was shown only in stroking the twins faces when they were unconscious after he LET SETSUNA DIE to ... teach them twins a lesson, I guess? I didn't see affection when he dumped them, hours old, under a tree. I didn't see parental affection when he refused to talk to them after seeing for the first time in years. I didn't see parental affection when he let the forest get burned down...for why? Because he was working for Zero and had to let it happen? Who said that? When was that ever shown? I, as the audience member, should not have to infer that much for such a plot point. It was NEVER explained.

And at the very end, the writers have the nerve to show the twins questioning their father's motives. That was something that should have been shown at least a season and a half ago. In fact, the twins themselves are weird when it comes to "love." Setsuna loves nothing until she see Rin, and suddenly, her daughterly devotion is 100%. I almost, ALMOST, could accept it because of the butterfly connection, but even that was not really explained or shown. Towa does not give a single shit for her mother, but she shows a desperate affection for people that she does not know and has even less of a connection to -- see her tears over Rion mere minutes after knowing her, wiling to give up her LIFE for Rion after essentially taking a really long walk with her and Riku for a day or two. On the subject of Riku, she sees him die and then just brushes off the tears and goes about her business. Even her reaction to the goodbye with her beloved Papa Sota is more or less a "sorry 'bout that" when he tells her she will always be his daughter.

And Rin. Sweet dear Rin who taught Sesshomaru to have a heart, sweet Rin sees Towa die TWICE and does not touch her a single time. In fact, the second time Towa "dies," Rin stands there with a bored expression. Maybe she is bored. She's died like three times herself as she casually mentions to her kids (but never explains, no). Dear, sweet Rin LAUGHS when she tells her daughters that their "training" is for the best because they will be attacked by monsters because of who they are. Rin, who spent almost the entire two seasons weeping over her daughters, sends them on their way at the very end with a casual wave and a see you later. If that is what the writers see as human, motherly love, then they were never going to be able to pull off portraying "yokai love." Their portrayal of human love was monstrous enough already.

#yashahime criticism #sesshomaru #rin #setsuna #towa

6 notes · View notes

duhragonball · 3 years

Text

[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (155/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation. This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: This story takes place about 1000 years before 66 years after the events of Dragon Ball Z.

Hey, it’s the Hero Lab!

[1 July, Age 726. Planet Plant.]

The latest reports from the frontlines were very encouraging. The Tuffles were a stubborn enemy, but the Saiyans had managed to drive them out of the north quarter of Orange City, while the Truffle pushback in Cidertown had slowed to a virtual standstill. Nappa smiled as he laid the report down and enjoyed the view from his new penthouse. The blood of the previous owner still stained the walls and floors, but he rather enjoyed the scent of dead Tuffles. It gave the place some much-needed personality.

"You seem to be in a good mood today."

Nappa looked up from the balcony and spotted a young Saiyan floating overhead. He didn't recognize the man, but judged him to be part-alien from the color of his hair and the strange clothes that he wore. He looked more like a Tuffle than a Saiyan, but the scent was proof enough that he wasn't Nappa's enemy. Whatever the young man's parentage, his blood was nothing like the kind that decorated his new home.

"Why wouldn't I be happy?" Nappa asked. His thin mustache framed his smile as he crossed his arms over his massive chest. "The Tuffles have been lording over us for years, and now we're finally taking over this planet, just as easily as I took over this apartment. Before long, the Tuffles will be the ones begging us to let them stay on Planet Plant."

"I guess you're right," the man said. "At least until someone stronger comes along and takes it all away from you."

"I like you, kid," Nappa said with a gravely laugh. "You sure do know how to tell a joke. What brings you here?"

"I had some questions," he said as he alighted on the balcony. "I need information, and I heard you knew my father, so I thought I'd start with you."

Nappa eyed the man suspiciously. "I know a lot of fathers," he said. "None of them wore long black coats, or carried a sword, though. What's your dad's name, kid?"

"Vegeta," he said.

Nappa laughed. Then he looked at the young man more carefully, doing his best to ignore the blue eyes and the lavender hair that hung around his face. Then he laughed harder.

"Something funny about that?" the man asked.

"I do see a bit of a resemblance," Nappa said. "Guess King Vegeta II had a few 'unofficial' heirs over the years, huh? Who knew he had it in him? So which is it? You want to blackmail the royal family? Or were you hoping they'd give you a cushy civil service job?"

"Nothing like that," the man said. "I just wanted to ask you some questions. Nothing personal, just general background stuff."

"Yeah? Well why should I help you?" Nappa asked. "For that matter, killing you would probably be a smarter play. One less would-be usurper for the king to worry about, right? I’m sure your old man would make it worth my while."

"Oh, I probably should have been more specific," the young man said. "My father isn't Vegeta the Second. It's Vegeta the Fourth."

Nappa gave him a sidelong glance. "There is no Vegeta IV," he said warily.

"Not yet, anyway," the man said with a knowing smile.

"That's it, I don't know what your game is, punk, but I'm through playing!" Nappa said. "You can tell your lies in hell!"

He drew back his arm and threw a punch that would have killed most Saiyans on contact. Nappa had made a name for himself on the battlefield for defeating entire companies of Tuffle mechatroops all by himself. He fully expected to turn the young man's head into a cloud of red mist.

Instead, the man blocked his strike with such incredible speed that Nappa couldn't even tell that he had moved. In one instant, the man had been standing with his hands in his pockets. And then in the next, the man was now gripping Nappa's palm with his thumb and index finger. He squeezed slightly, and Nappa nearly dropped to his knees from the pain.

"Nnnghhh!" was the noise he made as he struggled not to show how much it hurt. His free hand reached up for his scalp, where he tugged at the tuft of thick black hair on his head.

"Look, let's cut to the chase, all right? For you, this'll only take a few minutes, but I might be doing these interviews all night, so don't waste my time, okay? Those Tuffles you're fighting might be pushovers, but I'm not. So now that you know that you can't brute force your way out of this, what'll it be?"

He released Nappa's hand, and Nappa gasped with relief as he cradled it in his other palm. He stared at his hands for a moment, then at the man. Then he paused to consider the sword, and how much worse it would get if the young man decided to make use of it.

"Heh. Uh, yeah, sorry, Your Majesty. I-I should have recognized you sooner. Anything you want, just let me know, Prince... uh... Prince... What'd you say your name was?"

"I didn't," he replied. "So, let's start with a simple one. Have you ever heard of a Saiyan named Luffa?"

*******

[1 December Age 893, Earth.]

"Honestly, I didn't expect him to know Luffa. Nappa didn't recognize her when she faced him on a Time Patrol mission, but he did fill me in on a few things."

By Age 889, the arcade game Super Dragon Ball Heroes had become a popular pastime, and the city of Hero Town became the global headquarters for the craze. Gaming enthusiasts from around the world traveled to Hero Town to partake in the game, which was based upon actual events from the previous century. Trunks had logged many hours in front of an SDBH cabinet, though his reasons had nothing to do with recreation. For all its popularity, the game had a very strange secret. It was the Capsule Corporation who developed the software, but the world within the game was actually made possible by the Time Patrol. Deep beneath Hero Tower was the Hero Lab, where the Time Patrol occasionally conducted secret research and reconnaissance.

"I don't get it, Master," said a teenage girl standing near one of the main computer terminals that surrounded nearly every surface of the Hero Lab. "You formed the Dragon Ball Heroes Team to help you defeat Sealas, right? So why didn't you come to us on this Towa situation?"

"Note's right, Trunks!" said a teenage boy eating mochi from a bag. "I'm Goku's descendant, after all! It's not fair to leave me out of a case like this."

Trunks deactivated the Hero Switch device and handed it to Anne, one of the scientists who maintained the lab. His black trenchcoat and sword hung next to several labcoats on a metal rack in the corner, revealing the olive-green sweater he wore underneath. He smiled at Note and Beat, and then Dr. Leggings, the project director of the Hero Lab, who was programming the next simulation.

"I understand where you're coming from, kids," Trunks said, "and I appreciate the offer, but it's not that simple."

"Why not?" Beat asked. "From what you've told us, Luffa's a Saiyan, right? If that's all you needed, then I could have tackled these missions for you. I'm a Saiyan, too."

"Oh, here we go..." Note grumbled. She made sure to roll her eyes dramatically enough for everyone in the room to see.

"What?" Beat asked. "It's true, isn't it?"

"Beat, even I have Saiyan ancestry," Dr. Leggings said without looking up from her computer terminal. "After a hundred and thirty years of Saiyans living on Earth, it's not as uncommon as you might think."

"She's right," Trunks said. "We have a lot of Saiyan-Earthling Time Patrollers back in Toki Toki City from the next century. A few of the stranger ones call me 'Your Highness', but I try not to hold it against them. Besides, if all I cared about was Saiyan blood, I'd go to my father for help. So that's not why I recruited you, or Luffa, for that matter."

"Then why did you recruit Luffa instead of coming to us?" Beat asked.

"Listen,” Trunks said. “In my timeline, No. 17 and 18 had destroyed much of the world. Son Gohan was the only Z-fighter left, and he was reluctant to train me. He needed the help, but he was worried about me getting hurt. I think eventually he decided he didn't have a choice. He knew that if anything happened to him, there would have been no one else to defeat the Cyborgs. But now I understand how his reluctance. After he... well.... Later on, when I was on my own, I was determined to defeat them alone. I wanted no part of my mother's plan to use her Time Machine to get help from Goku."

"But, Master, if you hadn't gone back in time," Note said, then you never would have joined the Time Patrol, or formed the Dragon Ball Heroes Team!"

"Exactly," Trunks said. "Working with Goku and his friends in the past, I learned how valuable it can be to have allies. It's not just about having extra hands to help with the hard work. You can learn from each new friend you make. And they can learn from you, as well. I think that's why the Supreme Kai of Time created the Time Patrol in the first place. So it wouldn't be right to keep turning to the same handful of allies every time. Besides, I need you guys here, keeping an eye on things in Hero Town."

"Well, yeah," Beat said. "I guess that makes sense. But it's been so dull around here lately."

"Tell you what," Trunks offered. "Once things settle down in Toki Toki City, I'll pull a few strings, maybe bring you guys in on a Time Patrol mission. How's that sound?"

"Really?!" Note cheered. She jumped into the air and kicked her heels behind her with excitement.

"Awesome!" Beat said.

"Don't get too carried away," Trunks said. "I can't make any promises. Ultimately, it's up to the Supreme Kai of Time. But I think we can manage something."

"I think we're ready for the next session, sir," Leggings said. "Assuming these coordinates you gave us are valid. Are you sure we can trust Nappa?"

"She's right, Master," Note added. "He's bad news. Just because you're stronger than he is doesn't mean he would have had any reason to tell you the truth."

"Which is exactly why I'm using Hero Lab to access the game world instead of traveling back in time," Trunks explained. "Our research teams back in Toki Toki City are constantly using time machines to observe historical events, but they can't interact with anything or ask questions, because it might alter history."

"But the SDBH game is a simulation based upon the Scroll of Eternity itself," Dr. Leggings said. "Meaning it's a nearly perfect copy of the real world, one that you can tamper with and not have to worry about permanently changing anything."

"Of course!" Note said. "It's like how Sealas used the game to learn what changes he could make to alter history. He used the game like a practice run for the real thing."

"Only, instead of changing the way things happened in the past," Beat said, "you're using the game to find out how things are supposed to have turned out. But how does that help you learn anything about Luffa?"

"I asked Shenron to bring me a powerful ally," Trunks said. "I should have been more specific about the wish, but I was kind of desperate for the help. Shenron sent me Luffa, but she had no idea what was going on, and neither of us knows how to get her back where she came from. She talked to one of our historians, and it's starting to sound like she's from some other part of the universe, or maybe from another timeline. But wherever she's from, she's still a Saiyan, and not a descendant of Goku or Vegeta, like we are. So I think if I go far enough into the past, I'll find some historical information we have in common, and maybe I can follow that thread back to her home."

"Phew!" Beat said. "That sounds like a lot of work! I'm worn out just thinking about it."

"You're not even doing anything," Note muttered.

"There's no telling what kind of trouble I might run into in the simulated history," Trunks said. Dr. Leggings has only ever run the simulation in a very narrow time range. A few centuries at most. I may end up taking the simulation into uncharted territory, and everything I know about Saiyans tells me that they had plenty of enemies to fight. If things get hairy, I'll need some backup, and that's where you two come in. I can't think of anyone better qualified than my two top students."

"Gosh...!" Note said.

"Yeah! Now you're talking!" Beat cheered.

Anne handed the Hero Switch back to Trunks. The device was a powerful computer, but it looked like a black bracelet covered in glowing blue lights and a Capsule Corp. logo. Trunks placed it onto his right wrist and prepared to activate it.

"In the game world," he said, "Nappa told me that "Saiya" was a name for several planets colonized by Saiyans throughout history. The most recent one was destroyed around four hundred years ago. Hopefully, someone there will know more about King Rehval, or the Camelian Empire, or this Planet Nagaoka that Luffa once mentioned."

"What if they don't know, sir?" Anne asked.

"Then I'll have to keep traveling backward until I find someone who does," Trunks said. "Wish me luck."

"Wait, Trunks, one more thing before you go!" Dr. Leggings said urgently.

"Huh? What's wrong?" Trunks asked. He held up the Hero Switch on his wrist and pointed at it. "Everything looks good on this end."

"It's just... are you sure you don't want to wear the Great Saiyaman 3 outfit for this mission?" she asked.

"I'm positive," Trunks said. Before anyone could object, he activated the bracelet, and vanished into the game world.

*******

[12 May, Age 513. Planet Saiya.]

"You picked a fine time to ask about the weather, stranger."

The Saiyan’s name was Reeque, and Trunks had no idea how old she was. The small settlement he found on Saiya was it's largest population center, and they directed him to an old hag who lived in the wastelands. Trunks found her easily enough, but then the blood-wraiths attacked, and they had to take their conversation on the run. Powerful as Trunks was, his technology and ki were useless against the intangible creatures, and Reeque's warnings were enough to convince him that he should keep his distance.

"They become solid every seven months," Reeque told him. "Then we pay them back a thousandfold, but in the meantime, we run and hide until dawn. They say the storms left them behind, but I doubt that. Not even Luffa would be so cruel."

She carried a walking stick carved from some gnarled length of driftwood, but Trunks was impressed with how swiftly she crossed the rough terrain. Her dark red robes flapped behind her back like the wings of some great ugly hawk.

"I apologize for not making myself clear, ma'am," Trunks said as he hopped over a rock. "The Luffa I asked about is a Saiyan, not a storm system."

"Well that's perfectly clear to me, boy," Reeque said, "but it doesn't change the fact that you're mistaken. Only Luffa I've ever heard of is the one my great grandmother told me about. Wiped out the entire Kingdom of Saiya in a single day. The smart ones fled while they could. The rest stayed, but only the hardiest few survived. The environment here was harsh before Luffa, and it only got worse from there. Without the supplies from allied worlds... well, you learn to savor the taste of roast blood-wraith."

"Then where did the Saiyans go when they abandoned this planet?" Trunks asked.

"Hell," Reeque said. "If there's any justice, they went to hell. Otherwise they scattered across the galaxy. There was a kingdom on Sadala, but my life wouldn't be worth a zinc coin on that forsaken place. My parents were banished, and they joined the usurper kings during the civil wars. Fifty years ago, they tried to rebuild Saiya, like the name alone would restore their fortunes. But there's nothing left here. Nothing but blood-wraiths and ruin."

None of this was surprising to Trunks, since Nappa had told him this planet would eventually be destroyed altogether. He had tried to arrive on Saiya well before that day, but it seemed like the destruction of Saiya had been set into motion long before whatever warrior finally put it out of its misery.

"And King Rehval?" Trunks asked. "What became of him?"

"Why should you care, boy?" Reeque asked. "You've come a long way in search of the dead."

"I think he's my ancestor," Trunks said. "I, uh, I'm trying to settle a dowry on another planet, and they're very interested in genealogies."

"Social climber, huh?" Reeque said. "Well, I can't help you with that. Anything else you wanted to know?"

"The Camelian Empire," Trunks said. "Do you know where I can find it? I don't need exact coordinates, just a general idea will do. Er, is something wrong, ma'am?"

She began to make a sort of rhythmic coughing sound from her throat, and Trunks eventually figured out that it was laughter. "You're an amusing fellow," Reeque finally said. "When I saw that purple hair of yours, I thought I might be seeing things, but my imagination isn't wild enough to dream up such silly questions. Oh, I've spent countless nights like this one, running from bloodwraiths, but I think I'll remember tonight for a long time to come."

"Then you can't tell me about Camelia either," Trunks said.

"There's nothing to tell, boy," Reeque said with a rasping chuckle. "The Camelian Empire fell more than three hundred years ago!"

*******

[23 February, 238 Before Age. Chai I.]

"The ‘Super Saiyan’? Now what in the world is that, Trunks?"

"It's a legend I heard when I was a boy," Trunks said. "According to my father, once every thousand years, there's a Saiyan who surpasses the limits of what Saiyans can do. They're considered the ultimate warriors. Powerful, invincible, and with an insatiable craving for battle."

Rehval III considered this tale for a moment while admiring the bouquet of his wine. At last, he took a sip from his glass, and sampled a bite of his fish entree. Trunks waited patiently at the other side of the table. The restaurant looked fancier than any Trunks had ever seen on Earth, in any century. And this was merely a section of a minor administrative building in the Camelian capitol.

"I'll be blunt, Trunks,” Rehval finally said. “You seem like the kind of man who likes to get to the point, so I won’t keep you in suspense. I have no idea what you're talking about."

"I see," Trunks said.

"Do you believe in this legend yourself?" Rehval asked.

"No," Trunks said after a pause. "In my experience there's no such thing as an invincible warrior. There are extraordinary Saiyans, but not necessarily one every thousand years. There could be two or three, or a hundred, or none at all."

"I'll tell you what I think," Rehval said. "I have heard tall tales of ancient Saiyan heroes. Chanisp was said to have lived about a thousand years ago. For all I know, they've been saying "a thousand years ago" for centuries. I mean, a year ago, was anyone saying Chanisp lived 'nine-hundred and ninety-nine years ago'? Of course not. The round numbers make for better storytelling, but I deal in precision."

Rehval paused his meal to point at a gold watch on his left wrist. "My summit with the Camelian Imperial College begins in three hours and twenty-two minutes, Trunks. I can't afford to offend the Camelians by rounding up. Time can be a strict mistress."

"I take your point," Trunks said. "And I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me."

"Not at all," Rehval said. "There aren't many Saiyans in this part of the galaxy, besides common raiders, I mean. And you're a man of unusual manners and poise, Trunks. You're exactly the sort of citizen I want in the Kingdom of Saiya. I think you'd find life very prosperous under my rule."

"I am... interested in hearing more," Trunks said. "Let's put it that way."

"Well, then, it's a good thing you found me during this gap in my schedule," Rehval said. "I have all afternoon to convince you to come home with me."

Trunks smiled as though amused by his remark. In fact, this had been his third attempt to speak with King Rehval III. An earlier visit to the Camelian capital world gave him access to important diplomatic records, which showed him the exact date and time of an official visit by the Saiyan King. Trunks found him on the first try, but he was too busy to talk. Trunks reset the game world simulation and tried again, approaching Rehval three hours earlier, but wasn't able to catch the man's interest. This time, he figured out that the key to Rehval's attention was to show interest in joining his cause. Rehval’s Kingdom was the most powerful Saiyan faction in this era, but his subjects made up less than half of the Saiyan population, and Rehval was very keen on getting more Saiyans to rally to his flag. Even half-aliens like Trunks were welcome, apparently.

"Where did you say your mother was from?" Rehval asked. Trunks was pretty sure Rehval had aims for establishing diplomatic ties with Earth, even if he had no idea where it was or if it was worth his time.

"The Yajirobe System," Trunks lied. "It's pretty far off the beaten path. But what were you saying about Chanisp?"

"Well, there are lower classes in every society, Trunks," Rehval explained. "It's not something Saiyans think about much, but other civilizations have demonstrated it time and time again. The problem is that, in disorganized societies, these lesser citizens don't understand that they have a duty to follow their betters. And so, in their confusion, they turn to superstitions."

"Go on..." Trunks said. He took a bite of his salad and chewed thoroughly.

"They say Chanisp defeated a mighty demon and liberated the entire Saiyan race from slavery. Did it actually happen? Maybe. Was he one of your father's 'Super Saiyans'? He might have been. How does any of that prove that there should be another one like him ten centuries later? Oh, and the cycle just happens to reset in the present day. So the tale expects us to believe that, at any moment, any one of us might miraculously transform into an invincible, demon-slaying superhero. How convenient."

"Well, when you put it that way..." Trunks said.

"I'm not one to brag, Trunks, but as far as I know, the strongest Saiyan alive is sitting across the table from you. That's not a challenge, or a demand for respect, just a statement of fact. I'd have to be stronger to be the king, or I wouldn't be the king for very long, now would I?"

"Makes sense to me," Trunks lied again.

He only brought up the legend to gain historical context. Rehval seemed to enjoy discussing it, so that worked to Trunks’ favor, but what he had truly wanted to know was whether Rehval had heard of a golden-haired cryptid running amok in the galaxy. He had not, which meant that there had been no Super Saiyan in this era, or that the Super Saiyan hadn’t appeared yet.

"These legends are just stories people invent to convince themselves that there's a way out of their reality. When the thousandth year passes, they move the goalpost, or invent a new story to replace the old. 'Oh, the Super Saiyan is real, he's just invisible and working in secret, but he really is here to help us all.' That sort of thing."

"And that's why you're pursuing diplomatic ties with Camelia," Trunks concluded. "You can't afford to wait for a messiah."

"The Saiyans are at a crossroads, Trunks," Rehval said. "If our race is going to survive, we need to follow the same well-tread path as the Camelian Empire. Statecraft. National unity. It's not as romantic as your father's legend, but it works. It's a path that leads to prosperity. If we all unite as one kingdom, under one law, then we grow stronger as a people. That means forming alliances, brokering treaties, and all the other minutiae that goes with it."

"Well, this has been a very interesting discussion, but I'm afraid I need to get going," Trunks said. He stood up from his chair and gestured to the waiter to bring his coat and sword. "It's been a pleasure, Your Majesty."

"Wait," Rehval said. "I thought you wanted to hear more about Planet Saiya. The great society that I'm building there. I'd like you to be a part of that society, Trunks."

"I'm sure you would," Trunks said as he put his arms through the sleeves of his coat. "But I've already seen how Saiya turns out, and I'm already a part of the society you envisioned. What's left of it, anyway."

"I don't understand."

"It's simple. Your vision isn't all that visionary, Rehval. No matter how strong you think you are, there's always someone stronger who'll come along to challenge you. That's not a leader, that's a gunfighter daring someone to come along and defeat him. I've grew up in a world ruled by strength alone, and you're half-right. It is a well-worn path, but it doesn't lead to prosperity."

"What do mean you've already seen Saiya?" Rehval asked. "Who are you?"

Trunks activated the bracelet on his arm, and vanished from the game world. The simulated Rehval who existed within it was left with more questions than answers, though he would not ponder them for long. Soon enough, the simulation would be refreshed, and he would have no memory of this encounter.

NEXT: Burning Questions

#dragon ball #fanfiction #lssjluffafic #trunks #beat #note #dr leggings #anne #nappa #rehval iii #reeque

9 notes · View notes

benisasoftboi · 3 years

Text

Unorganised thoughts on Trails of Cold Steel IV:

WHY ARE THEY CALLED CLASS VII?

WHO ARE CLASS VI?

Anyway - I started playing Trails in August, and I’ve finally, finally caught up (yes I know Hajimari I can’t read Japanese) and like... what do I do now?

It’s a fantastic series and I’m so, so glad I picked up Trails in the Sky on a whim last summer

This game was long. Is it longer than the other ones? It felt that way

The best part was the first chapter because Rean wasn’t in it and yeah I still don’t like him!!! But seriously, it was astonishing how much more I was enjoying things without him

I audibly groaned when goddamn bonding points returned in the second chapter

Actually that was a lie, the best part was Any Time My Angel Estelle Was On Screen

I missed her so much

I let her get the final hit of the game against the boss because she’s the best

Speaking of angels I caught three Wazy cameos!!!

Also Gilbert came back and if there had been a camera on me... I quite literally teared up a little I was so thrilled

I hate the curse it is dumb and rips all the nuance out of the characters. People do not need a goddamn evil curse to be swayed to extremes by overzealous nationalism. Trails I know you are better than this, I played Sky and Crossbell

Fav new location was Milsante (liked Alster too, though). I really like going to tiny little outposts and villages in JRPGs, they make the world feel more real

What the hell was up with the Osgiliath Basin? As in, Giliath Osborne??? Is this going to be a Hajimari thing?

Oh yeah, HOT TAKE, Alan Richard >>> Giliath Osborne. I was reading an LP of Sky FC while playing the game, and Richard’s motivation is clearer and less over-complex, more sympathetic, and he’s just generally a far more human character

Alan Richard best political antagonist in the series fight me (Rufus Albarea distant second)

For best supernatural/cult-y antagonist I’m stuck between Weissmann and Joachim. Or maybe Campanella lol

Oh uh speaking of characters named Georg I will never not hate everything about the George and Angie subplot. Angie should have died and George should have stayed evil, or it shouldn’t have happened at all. As it is, it was a complete waste of time - you could take it all out and NOTHING would change

Angie would have been the perfect character to sacrifice as well, she’s just important enough that it would feel like ‘oh shit’s getting real’ but not so important that it’s unbelievable

(like Olivier. I could not fully believe they’d actually kill him, and the moment Laura told me ‘they never found the bodies’ I was like, oh, so they’re definitely all still alive, cool)

I mean, it would be a Bury Your Gays, but honestly... there are things I like about Angie, but is anyone really looking to her as a lesbian role model? I hope not. Yikes

So yeah I guess I hate George now for getting my hopes up and then being boring. Shame

I did the Towa romantic ending, of course. I genuinely think she’s the best match for Rean, of all his love interests

Chaaaracters

Rean: Still the least interesting person. Not a good sign when I’m sadder about the robot dying than the main protagonist yeeting himself into the sun (side note, the two endings thing? Unnecessary and dumb). There is no reason girls would like him this much, blah blah I’ve said it all before. Liked his new hair. Honestly would have respected it if they’d had the balls to kill him off. I basically never even used him in battle lol, Juna became my new team leader

Juna: Honourary protagonist imo. I’ve changed my mind since CS3, she’s my fav new Class VII without a doubt. She’s just really good and full of personality and depth and OH GOD WHY IS SHE CRUSHING ON REAN WHY FALCOM WHY

Kurt: pls falcom don’t try to force this aroace king into a nonsense ship with Sully I liked her but what are you doing, anyway Kurt is great and he got cool new swords and he got to hang out with Mueller, who I adore, I love Kurt

Altina: I also love this little bunny. Her relationship with Millium is so lovely and seeing her grow and become her own person made me so happy and OH GOD WHY IS SHE CRUSHING ON REAN WHY FALCOM I LITERALLY SAID SHE HAS THE BEST RELATIONSHIP WITH REAN OF ALL THE GIRLS BECAUSE SHE DOESN’T DO THAT IN THE LAST GAME WHY DO YOU HATE ME????

Musse: Yeah I’m still not sold on Musse but I liked her better this time! I like a smart, confident girl! Just stop being weird about your teacher and we’d be golden!

Ash: Good boy. Sweet boy. Ash and Joshua game now Falcom

Alisa: Still cannot believe she’s presented as the deuteragonist by the marketing - but you know what? Solid arc, she got some closure with her parents, maybe she and Jusis can get together for tea and complain about their messed up families. She’s never going to be a character I like all that much, but I don’t dislike her. I just wish she hadn’t clearly been written as ‘Rean’s love interest’ before anything else

Elliot: I love Elliot, I really do. I mean, I wish he hadn’t been flanderised to the point of speaking in music puns half the time, but he’s a solid, consistently pleasant character

Laura: Goddamnit Falcom please give Laura anything resembling an emotion regarding her dad dying. Also you tell me she’s kind of oblivious and stuff but we never see it. I like Laura but she really could have been more

Machias: I love Machias, fight me fan base. He’s so funny to me. It feels like, at this point, all he really wants is a nice office job, near a nice coffee shop, where he files papers and sometimes gets to yell at corrupt rich people, but NO, he has to run about in dungeons and fight monsters, and are you FUCKING kidding me, ANOTHER crazy snake cultist!?!? It’s great, he’s the only one who’s just done with it all and love it

I low key headcanon that he and Jusis are kinda dating at this point, but we don’t see anything because the games are from Rean’s POV and they don’t want to tell him because they know he’d be weird about it

Jusis: I still really like Jusis! He’s interesting, and his surrogate brother-sister relationship with Millium is so sweet (yes, I saw that bouquet catch, Falcom, and I hate it, stop it, gross). Awesome to see him confront his brother, obviously I let him have the final blow. Rufus was a great antagonist. Jusis has some of the best development over the games, and is also really fun to use in battle (apparently I am the only one who feels this way though :/ ah well)

Fie: I was surprised by how much I liked Fie’s confession scene, seeing as I don’t like Rean/Fie at ALL. Fie finally gets to have feelings about her dad, and we see her working with Zin at the end! Very happy for Fie, best girl

Emma: Ahhh I still find Emma kinda dull and exposition heavy, but she also had a nice arc, I liked her relationship with Rose, all good

Rose beat me at Vantage Masters for 40 minutes lol

Gaius: It’s still extremely funny to me that Gaius became one of the most important people on the continent *off screen*. And he still doesn’t really do anything. He has his own airship now, I guess. Justice for Gaius

Sara: Kind of faded from relevance after CS1, but I do really like her all the same. And I loved her speech at the end

Crow: At the end his hair got darker and everyone was like ‘you’re back to normal!’ and I literally did not realise he was meant to have been looking different

But anyway Crow is a really good character and I literally never didn’t enjoy him. I love the bit where Jusis and Machias team up to call him a cringy edgelord, because they are right. Crow is fantastic

Towa: Towa has never done anything wrong in her life and all of Erebonia should pay for her therapy

Patrick: I cannot believe how much I love Patrick now, compared to CS1. He’s just such a sweetie. Good boy

Elise: Take her to the sun with you, Rean. Pointless character

Alfin: Is she the heir now? I hope so. She’s such a funny character, not my fav, but I enjoyed her

Angie and George: Should have died, moving on

Celine: I love her, but did she really need a human form? No, no she did not. Great character though

Tita: Special mention, because you know what? I do not like this version of Tita! Like I said, I was reading FC recently and she was so much better there! Now a third of her lines are just her saying ‘Agate’ in various different tones. And it feels like she’s lost a lot of her confidence, where’s the little girl who followed us up Carnelia Tower? I would have preferred them to just not bring her back at all

Duvalie: Haha I love Duvalie she’s great. Stop implying that she’s crushing on Rean. Literally WHY would she. Ugh

Rose: Everything about Rose is great, I would play a full game about her backstory. More Rose

Ships!

Obviously I like Machias/Jusis because I am BASIC

I didn’t like Olivier/Schera back in Sky, but you know what? They sold me. It’s cute (even if I feel Schera’s character was neglected in favour of Being A Love Interest, sigh). Though I’m not sure when Olivier made the switch from ‘Schera is one of many people I flirt with’ to ‘Schera is my one and only’?

But am I the only person who’s kinda on the Oliver/Schera/Mueller train? I’m not normally into OT3s, but Olivier and Mueller have one of the best dynamics in the series, and Schera and Mueller would probably get along great if they were ever allowed to properly interact. And you know Olivier would be down

Like I say, I do not like Jusis/Millium at all, it’s not a ‘I like another ship better’ thing, it just massively skeeves me out because of the maturity difference

Ash/Tatiana was unexpected but adorable

Patrick/Elise, because I want Patrick to be happy and Rean to be mad

Also Elise/Alfin, sorry Patrick

I hope Anton and Sharon really do get together. Sharon deserves unconditional love and Anton deserves a happy ending

Sharon also deserves to hook up with Sara like once

I also sort of feel like Sara/Claire would be fun

I’ve actually like Gaius/Linde from CS1, I’m happy it’s kind of a thing now!

If Lila/Maybelle is the LET’S GO LESBIANS Trails ship, then Emily/Theresia is LET’S GO BABY LESBIANS

Vincent/Margarita. They’re both horrible people. At least this way no one else has to deal with them

Joining my Kloe/Josette in the ‘crack ships I love that have very, very little canon basis’ is Fritz/Kairi, based on their interactions in that one mission and then that they’re eating together at Mishelam. It’s pretty much just a height differences thing, lol

Miles/Elnan. I have literally no justification for this

Other stuff There was this one scene where Gaius says how nice it is that Mueller cares about Olivier and Mueller just snaps his head round and the scene ends, and I don’t think it was meant to be funny but I laughed for like a full minute

The intro to the music at Mishelam is extremely creepy to me

I love the Pom Party mini game a whole lot

There were... a lot of typos in the second half of the script. It’s massive, so I’m not mad, but I hope there’s a patch at some point

BERYL BERYL BERYL BERYL BERYL I love her

Uh if we’re still doing romance next arc please give us a gay option, no Crow did not count

I hate divine knight battles! I really do! That last one against Ishmelga was really hard and not in a fun way! In a ‘this is bullshit fake difficulty’ way. Please don’t bring them back!

The true final battle, though? FANTASTIC, now THAT is a final boss! One of the best in the series, like that’s such a fun gimmick!

I got it trapped in break state and spammed Heaven’s Kiss/Quick Star, because I’m a strategic gamer

I am embarrassed by how long it took me to recognise Lucy

KLOE CAMEO!!!

Oh and I assume Kaela is going to be important next arc, since it’s in Calvard?

I love Thomas??? And Rosine???

Why was the grandmaster reveal hidden behind watching the ending twice, why do that? Great scene, though

My theory is that she is Aidios, I will cling to this for as long as possible

I probably have like a million other things to say that I’m just not remembering right now. Look forward to random shouts into the void about it in upcoming weeks, followers

I really enjoyed this overall, despite the problems I mentioned above. It was just fun, I like the cast, the gameplay is great... just a solid game

Trails is a really fantastic franchise - not perfect, but what is? I’ve had such a fun time with it over the past half-year, and I cannot wait to see what happens next. Thank you, Falcom, the localisation team, the VAs - stellar job all around

This is normally where I’d end on a joke but like. Nah, I’m just happy. Cue ‘The Whereabouts of Light’

#long post #cold steel #cold steel 4 #trails of cold steel 4 #cs4 #cs4 spoilers #cold steel 4 spoilers #trails of cold steel #kiseki #kiseki series #trails series #:)

11 notes · View notes

medea10 · 3 years

Text

Medea’s Worst Year of All-Time Anime/Game Superlative

Nobody saw this year coming…except for maybe Barbara Walters! Who could have predicted that this year would bless us with Australia burning, the entire west coast of the U.S. set on fire, stupid people setting fires because they wanted to reveal a baby’s gender, murder hornets, Ruth Bader Ginsburg dying, an almost war with Iran, serial killer mascots arrested, policemen killing unarmed black folks for having a counterfit $20, policemen killing unarmed black folks for breaking up a fight, policemen killing black folks for holding sandwiches, policemen killing unarmed black folks for fucking sleeping, a wide variety of “Karens” coming out of the woodworks, the end of Bojack, the end of Steven Universe, the end of Empire, and a pandemic so huge it’s killed the economy, canceled fun, and given the U.S. president the dumb-fuck idea of injecting bleach to kill the virus!?

SERIOUSLY, WHO COULD HAVE PREDICTED ALL OF THIS WAS GOING TO FALL IN OUR LAPS LIKE HOT COFFEE ON THE CROTCH?!

At least there was anime this year.

…

At least there was SOME anime this year.

…

Biden won the election and Vickeblanca came out with Black Catcher this year.

Hey internet, it’s Medea here to give you her trashy opinion on this years anime and games that she’s watched or played. Because for some reason, my loser-ass loves to do out-dated as fuck memes! I shouldn’t complain, this shit brings a lot of attention to my page every year when I do this. Yes, 2020 was a complete dumpster fire so large that Domestic Girlfriend is crying foul. Many of us had to go on lockdown and ended up binge-watching the entire 957+ episodes of One Piece. I did no such thing. I am one of those “essential workers” so I didn’t hunker down for 9 months straight. But when I was home, I was watching anime. Actually, I would have done that even without the pandemic. I’m an introvert and find the human race to be deplorable.

You all know how this goes. I go over the best this year had to offer me. I had to search really hard to find the good in this year, especially in the anime world. Many things had to be put on hiatus or were delayed to a later date. Just a reminder, I don’t discriminate in what year the anime or game came out. If something came out in the happier times of 2007, that anime or game counts! Let’s get at it!

First Fandom of 2020: Interspecies Reviewers

Did anyone expect a fan-favorite of 2020 was going to be a hentai? Did anyone have on their batshit 2020 bingo card that a hentai was going to grab everybody’s attention? At the beginning of the year, my mind was set on the Railgun sequel and Eizoken. It wasn’t until licensors, streaming sites, and TV stations in Japan dropped this series that I started to pay attention. And got immediately hooked! It’s about three men going to different brothels and reviewing their time with the ladies. And these ladies are of different species! So with every bang comes possible enlightenment, new kinks, or a night of having your dick sucked off more than humanly possible. This anime blew away all of my skepticism and first impressions right out the window. Maybe it’s because I’m a degenerate and am often curious about sexual content, but this was a guilty pleasure of mine this year.

Favorite Main Character of 2020: Moroha from Yashahime

I know the majority of this story is going to revolve around Towa and Setsuna, but can we please focus a little more energy on the spunky, quarter-demon girl?! I know they’re pitting Moroha as the comic relief, but I’m hopeful that she’s going to surprise us one day. We fans of InuYasha would spend the past decade and some change wondering what InuYasha and Kagome’s daughter would be like. This year, we got our answer with Moroha. She’s got this wild side to her, probably due to the fact that she’s spent her entire life on her own. And while she’s silly at times, she can get down to business in a pinch. She has her father’s sense of smell. She has a sword. She’s able to shoot sacred arrows much like her mother. And to top it all off, she has this special rouge that if she puts it on, she’s able to unleash that ¼ demon power inside her and become Beniyasha! Yeah, I know the power only lasts a minute, she’s only 14, give her a break! I will gladly go through another week scratching my head at the confusion this story gives me if I get to see one more second of Moroha and her crazy antics or her bad-ass slaying.

Favorite Villain of 2020: The Devil Believers from Black Clover

This was one hell of a year for Black Clover. It would have been an easy choice to pick the devil and possible super devil that appeared during the elf fight. But I’d like to give a nod to the filler arc villains. And you can’t blame this group for wanting the power of the devil. They’re literally the bottom-rung of the Clover Kingdom and ones with little to no power or mana. So I can agree with why they would want the power of the devil. For one thing, they’d have more power. And for another thing, they’d be able to exact revenge on those who have wronged them. On some occasions I agree with exacting revenge and when it comes to the nobles and some characters in Black Clover, some folks do deserve death. I mean, have you met the king of the Clover Kingdom? Plus, this town and many other poorer towns get looked over by the kingdom. Peasant uprise! Anyways, I thought these people were really crafty in their crimes. I mean, they were able to knock Asta out on his ass with specially made poisons. I was actually hooked to this story of Black Clover (despite it being a filler arc). I know we’ll never see them again as they have been exiled, but it did have me semi-rooting for them.

Favorite Video Game Character of 2020: Honey from Pokemon – Sword & Shield (Expansion Pass)

Sorry Raymond from Animal Crossing!

Honey is the saucy wife of Mustard…I did not expect that to come out the way it did, but here we are! She has one hell of a team you can fight once a day. She looks out for her husband, the dojo, and the students of the dojo like they were her own children by providing food, drinks, and others. However that does come at a price as you do have to give up a sizable chunk of your watts that you collect in raid dens. I’m sure a bunch of MILF chasers were more than happy enough to give her all their hard-earned watts just so they can have their one-on-one moment on the beach with Honey.

What won me over was when that one guy from a rival dojo bad-mouthed her husband’s dojo and she…I think she kicked this guy’s ass herself. I don’t think she used any of her pokemon. Game Freak won’t show it, but we all know she kicked this guy’s ass to a point where he’s begging for mercy.

Honey, for the win!

Favorite Game of 2020: Animal Crossing New Horizons

This game was just Zen for me. I know the release of this game came with some controversy like Gamestop saying it’s an essential business and will remain open for people to get their copies of the game. Hell, I was one of those assholes in line waiting to get a copy on March 20th. Did I predict that a pandemic was going to rage out of control when I got a prepay copy of this for Christmas 2019? NO! I only predict political things, not deadly pandemics! The good news, we social distanced, didn’t catch the covid and got the game.

Anyways, this game has been a non-stop calming and fun ride. I can even forgive their botch-up of Bunny Day. They even have events for holidays I never thought they would ever touch. I mean, does anybody know when Museum Day is? Probably not until Animal Crossing had an event for it! I’ve been able to let my freak-flag fly with designing my island. And this goes way beyond New Leaf for the 3DS. I can make a sign post with the words “Fuck Trump” on it and post it in my yard. I can dig up trees and plant them elsewhere. I can poop in a toilet. I can craft furniture and put my own design on it. My furniture can have Tracey Sketchit’s beautiful mug on it. I can sit on Tracey Sketchit’s face. I am a sick fuck and I don’t care. I can give Raymond and Bob maid outfits. Magical time in my game! My hopes for next year…I don’t know, get the Festivale furniture, get Papi and Olivia to join my island, maybe visit Danny Trejo’s island, who knows, sky’s da limit!

Favorite Het Couple of 2020: Nasa and Tsukasa Yuzaki from Tonikawa

This is one of the most unorthodox marriages I’ve ever seen. But in this 90 Day Fiance world we’re living in, I shouldn’t pass judgement on these two getting married in episode one and not knowing much about each other. Nasa meets Tsukasa as he was about to be plowed by a truck. Tsukasa saves his life. Nasa says she’s beautiful. Tsukasa says she’ll be his girlfriend if they get married. He agrees. She disappears. Four years later, Tsukasa appears in front of Nasa’s front door with a marriage registration form. Congratulations buddy, you’ve got yourself a waifu! In some way, this felt like watching Yamato and Takeo from My Love Story. I was fascinated with them progressing through their relationship. The only difference is that Yamato and Takeo took the old-fashioned route. This couple did everything ass-backwards in terms of having a relationship. But I couldn’t take my eyes off Nasa and Tsukasa’s relationship during each episode. I find them cute.

Favorite Yuri Couple of 2020: Karin Asaka x Emma Verde from Love Live Nijigasaki High School Idol Club

AAAAAAAAAH! I’M IN IDOL HELL AGAIN! Yeah, no kidding! I came this close to putting Miu x Nicole from that abomination 22/7. But thank God for Love Live! There’s no telling if any of the girls from the Love Live franchise are confirmed to be lesbians. But fuck it, all of them attend all-girl schools, no males exist anywhere, and Sunshine gave us Kanan x Mari! Yeah, you know Kanan and Mari is canon as fuck, don’t at me. So naturally, I found more third-years to ship in the new Love Live series. Now I know I should have put up Ai x Rina or Ayumu x Yuu. Especially the latter due to recent events! But Emma x Karin is my OTP.

Now Emma is an exchange student from Switzerland and in coming to Nijigasaki, she first meets Karin and they became instant friends. When Emma said she wants to become an idol, Karin helped her quite a bit. Even though Karin had no interest in being an idol as her modeling career is starting up, Karin would occasionally help Emma out. And surprise, surprise, Karin ends up fascinated with the idol world and Emma helps her come to the light to be herself there. Okay, I’m totally reading this in some fragmented way, but I’m currently playing Love Live School Idol Festival All Stars and the app game has a lot more stuff involving stuff the anime has yet to talk about. Confirmed or not, Karin x Emma for the win!

Favorite Yaoi Couple of 2020: Eiji Okumura x Ash Lynx from Banana Fish

It took me a while to get here, but I finally made it to 2018’s overlooked gem. Forgive me for not being fully caught up, but from what I’m watching at the moment, I’m sticking to my guns and supporting the hell out of this. I mean, I could have mentioned The Titan’s Bride here…but fuck no, I ain’t goin’ down that mess! Ash has gone through a lot, I mean a helluva lot in his past. His cute boy looks have made him a target on the streets of New York, with mafia dons, and with prison inmates. But dude can kill if you mess with him. Then you have Eiji, who is just a literal example of a “pure cinnamon roll (until episode 8)”. These two are as opposite as you can possibly get. Ash is from New York and Eiji is from Japan. Ash likes hot dogs with everything on it. Eiji likes grilled fish and natto. Ash spent the majority of his life killing on the streets. Eiji was a track superstar. You get my meaning. But when we got these two together it’s quite adorable. Ash is really able to change when he’s around Eiji. Ash isn’t some heartless killer on the street about to kill a thug with prosthetic fingers. When he’s with Eiji, he’s a joker that can easily get scared of pumpkins. And even in later episodes, you got these two acting like a husband and wife.

Fandom That You Didn’t Expect to Get Into: Les Miserables – A Girl Named Cosette

Let me explain a little something. Les Mis! I have never seen the play, watched the movie, or read the novel prior to picking up this anime. Not a single one of those! And that’s a bit of a head-scratcher when you realize I was a bit of a musical theater nut in my teenage years. But one thing I do like is when Japan does an anime based on plays or historical events (like Romeo x Juliet or Rose of Versailles). The second I popped in Les Miserables the anime, I wanted to binge watch the whole 52 episode series. It is by no means a perfect adaptation of the Victor Hugo novel. Several key players end up surviving all the way up to the end of the story! But because this was my very first viewing of anything Les Mis, I took to the story of Cosette and was eager to see what was going to happen next in her tale. Unlike the movies and play, Cosette was the main focus of the story besides Jean Valjean and Javert. And thanks to watching the unfortunate stories of Cosette, Jean Valjean, the Thenadiers, Javert, Marius, and the rest, I thought it was time to watch the OTHER adaptations to Les Mis.

…

Russell Crowe sucks.

Fandom That Made An Unexpected Comeback: Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni

Higurashi or When They Cry is one of my favorite fandoms of all time! So naturally when we heard that it was making a comeback, I was excited. It was also very odd that Higurashi was given this sequel or reboot. Ahem! There’s another franchise that needs a face-lift. Umineko still deserves a better treatment. Plus, now that this series was out of the faulty hands of Studio Deen, Higurashi will get the special care it deserves. Believe it or not, it wasn’t just the anime that made a comeback for me, but the manga as well. Since 2009, I’ve read several volumes (out of order) and would every now and then come back to read the story. Back to the anime, this reboot or sequel…you know what, I’m gonna call it a “rebooqual”! This rebooqual sucked me back to the town of Hinamizawa and all the murders. Every week, I find myself comparing the current episode to one from the 2006 version. But then the fourth episode of each arc seems to catch me off guard.

Where are they going with this story and these twist endings to our favorite arcs? I did not expect Rena to turn a simple attempted murder into the end of School Days! I didn’t expect Rika to die in the most disgusting fashion they could think of. Could someone kill Teppei fucking Hojo? I will pay ¥5000 for someone to do that job. So yeah, because I know how much of this plays out and who does what, I’m usually watching and reading while making wise-ass remarks. But I still have fun with it.

Fandom That Inspired the Most Crack: Konosuba

In a year where I caught up with the popular Isekais like Shield Hero and Re:Zero, I found the wacky misadventures of Kazuma Satou to be amusing as all get-out. From the first 5 minutes, I found myself laughing at Kazuma’s misfortune. Seriously, how the fuck do you mistake a tractor for a car, have a heart attack, piss yourself, and fucking die in the first couple minutes to the series? You can only get away with this shit in gag animes! But it’s not just Kazuma’s dumbass, there’s a mage who only does explosions, but loses all her energy after one blow-up. Then there’s a busty, blonde who gets turned on by getting hurt and can’t strike anything with her sword. Anime’s biggest masochist or Cheryl Tunt incarnate, I haven’t decided which one to believe! Then you have this loud, crazy goddess chick named Aqua. She’s also useless about 86% of the time! Watching their unfortunate missions is all the crack that I need to get through this year. Seriously, Darkness is just all kinds of fucked up, but we love her.

Last Fandom of 2020: Yashahime

That’s right, the InuYasha sequel gets top spot here! Even though week after week I find myself asking more questions than when the episode started, I’m still hooked. If you’re like me, you watched and fell in love with the series InuYasha. So if they’re doing a sequel, you’re expecting to see all of your favorite characters from the prequel like InuYasha, Kagome, Miroku, Sango, Sesshomaru, Koga, Rin, and the rest. Actually, no! Quite the opposite! We’ve got Sesshomaru’s daughters, but no Sesshomaru. Rin is sleeping in a tree we think! We’ve got InuYasha and Kagome’s daughter, but they’re M.I.A. None of the girls even know a thing about their birth parents.

Now are these new characters a catch like the ones from the previous series? Some are! The three main girls, yes! Especially Moroha! I’ve already praised her name earlier in the superlative. Towa and Setsuna do take on some personality traits from their parents. Setsuna is definitely serious like Sesshomaru and Towa sometimes has a carefree yet loyal aura to her like Rin. I know I’m always skeptical when a series gives us a sequel featuring the offspring of the main characters. Especially when you’ve got some lame examples like Boruto and Eureka Seven AO (I might retract my diss on Boruto later)! As each week gives us a new episode, we’re unraveling new clues into a lot of things involving our old favorite characters, as well as the new ones. So I have high hopes for Yashahime for the time being!

14 notes · View notes

unlockthelore · 4 years

Text

Challenger

Kagome watched as the challenge between Moroha and Rin commenced.

From the series Affections Touching Across Time on Ao3. For more updates, follow the affections touching across time tag on this blog.

“Aunt Rin! I challenge you!”

Under normal circumstances, the proclamation of a challenge from a child would’ve been grounds for a bit of laughter and humoring. Kagome knew this. She’d dealt with a number of her daughter’s demands and even Inuyasha played along. According to their daughter’s rants, Rin was the most diabolical villain she’d faced in her six years of life. To say that Rin took to the title well would’ve been an understatement.

She seemed to absolutely revel in it.

Now, as Moroha stood atop of an upturned basket and stared down her nose at Rin, Kagome could see the epic battle brewing. Rin set down a half-finished flower crown ever so gently and rose to her full height which admittedly wasn’t much. The years had granted Rin many things, but out of her, Kagome and Sango — she was still the smallest. Though she was tall enough to tower over Moroha. Sparks flying between them as their eyes met. Setsuna and Towa eyed their cousin and mother, one a little exasperated while the other was excited.

“You’re a thousand years too early to challenge me, Moro,” Rin said, staring down her nose imperiously. “And remind me, who was it that won the few battles we’ve had?”

Moroha winced then growled, the picture of her father’s stubbornness as she jabbed a finger at Rin. “You cheated, and you know it!”

“Cheated...?” Rin muttered, trailing off ominously, a chill filling the air. Setsuna eased closer to Kagome’s side with a whisper of what sounded like a prayer while Towa was smothering laughter behind her hands. Cheating was the gravest offense and insult. And somehow Kagome questioned her sanity with knowing the rules of her family’s games. Glancing to Sango, their eyes met and they sighed.

It was a good thing Chihiro and Yuiko weren’t present. They would’ve only fueled the flames.

Moroha gulped when Rin folded her arms across her chest.

“Fine then, niece. I accept your challenge, but know this... there will be no mercy.”

Moroha clenched her fist and to her credit put on a brave face. “You’ll be the one looking for mercy.”

Kagome almost questioned Rin’s sanity when she laughed, foreboding and almost a cackle. Perhaps those rumors of her being a witch weren’t too far off.

“We’ll see, now won’t we? Choose your weapon, and the place of your defeat.”

Kagome didn’t know what to tell Sesshomaru when he returned with Inuyasha. Both a little worn from sparring but attentive to the absolute chaos before them. Rin, armed with leather pouches filled with water, volleyed them at the girls while dodging their own in an impressive display of coordination and agility. Somehow Moroha had rallied Towa and Setsuna to her cause. The trio chasing after Rin with their own arsenal, soaked to the bone, but unwilling to concede defeat.

Sango sat at a distance, amused and drinking tea, while Kagome stood to greet the pair.

“What... is happening?” Inuyasha asked, wincing when Moroha was knocked off her feet by a well-aimed shot at her feet.

Kagome hummed, setting aside dry clothes for the trio to change into. “A challenge and training, I suppose. Rin is a moving target and quicker than most — it’d help with Moroha’s aim.”

To her surprise, Sesshomaru hummed in what she thought was approval. Inuyasha looked between them, either surprised or horrified.

“Don’t tell me you agree with this too,” he turned his head, squinting at Sango.

Sango shrugged. “No one is being hurt and they’re having fun.”

Before Inuyasha could say another word, Rin breezed over in a flurry of laughter, pressing a kiss to Sesshomaru’s cheek. “Welcome back,” she said happily with her best winning smile.

It would have been an adorable scene. Sesshomaru’s shoulders fell a bit and his eyes softened, hand resting against Rin’s shoulder until she danced away just in time for a pouch to nail him in the chest bursting against one of the spikes on his armor.

Time seemed to slow.

Kagome covering her mouth to stifle a yelp. Sango gasping. Inuyasha sputtering and doubling over with laughter while Rin ran.

Sesshomaru picked the bits of leather off of him and slowly lifted his head. Towa staring at him, wide-eyed and stricken. “I-I’m sorry, father!”

Setsuna and Moroha inched closer to her. Seeming prepared to help her in her time of need, then Sesshomaru’s gaze cut towards Rin.

“Towa.”

Towa stiffened up. “Yes?”

He held out a hand and Kagome’s mouth fell open.

“You’re not serious,” Inuyasha muttered from beside her.

Rin slowed down beside Setsuna just as Towa went to Sesshomaru, an offering of the leather pouches in hand. “Setsuna, Moroha, hand me those,” Rin said, opening her hands to them.

Kagome sighed and waved a hand once Setsuna and Moroha relinquished theirs. “Girls, come over here.”

Once they were safely out of the way, the stage was set. Rin standing across from Sesshomaru tossing a pouch up and down. If she had a wicked look in her eye before, now it was sheer glee.

“Well, Sesshomaru,” she caught one in her hand neatly and held it out, pointing a finger at him. “I challenge you.”

And then they moved.

#inuyasha fandom #inukag #sessrin #fanfiction #my fanfiction #higurashi kagome #rin #moroha #setsuna #towa #sesshomaru #inuyasha #sango #affections touching across time

15 notes · View notes

schalaasha · 4 years

Text

Favourite Games of 2019

I don’t like making ranked lists anymore. So here’s a bunch of games old and new I played in 2019 because I was busy catching up due to not playing FFXIV as much as in previous years.

Ciconia When They Cry Phase 1: For You, The Replaceable Ones

I think going in, and even starting to play it, I felt like maybe the game would abandon the WTC mystery game conventions. It ended up not doing that, because the game leaves you with far more questions than answers at the end. The A3W World (“after World War III”) is still trying to deal with political issues and social issues that existed prior to World War III. A global stalemate exists due to the military implementation of the Gauntlet weapon. Eventually things happen where different countries need to deal with a shortage of resources, territorial conflicts, etc which sets off a chain reaction to World War IV. However, the children who grew up in the A3W era, settled into new ideologies and views of how society currently works are at odds with what the older generation wants and requires of them. Along the way, they need to deal with other groups and conspiracies in order to maintain the Walls of Peace.

So in essence, R07 still crafts a mystery for readers to figure out, but it isn’t a murder mystery. It’s an international conspiracy mystery and I am more than okay with that. I think this chapter required a lot of worldbuilding to set that kind of story up and coming out of Phase 1, I understood why the first chapter wasn’t exactly like Umineko’s. I thought that it was handled well, despite some of the purple prose (but if you’ve played a R07 game before, you’re likely used to it). I also thought he really tried to introduce and incorporate themes including gender, generational differences, societal tiers, geopolitics disguised as sports events (possibly mirroring the 2020 Olympics in Japan), etc. as well as he could throughout the story through the game’s cast. Even if the game meanders a bit (and it definitely feels that way towards the start), when it actually starts to roll, I felt compelled to keep reading.

And truly, the game has an incredibly large cast of characters. The TIPS section handles introductions well, and while some cast members don’t have as much time in the spotlight as others, I can see them getting their time eventually in subsequent chapters. Clearly Phase 1 exists to focus more on the children from the Arctic Ocean Union (the “AOU”) as evidenced by the additional stories unlocked at the end of the game so hopefully other chapters have the same amount of character backstory for the other factions. I also genuinely enjoyed that the big international cast of characters allowed for many different types of designs with characters with different types of hairstyles and hair texture or characters wearing hijabs and still managed to make them retain adorableness or a sense of style. I do not recall seeing it as often in Japanese media and I’m very happy to see it here.

I think Ciconia Phase 1 is a very good start to this subseries’ planned four episodes and I hope to see more sociopolitical commentary. It feels as though R07 looked at everything happening in Japan and social media/how news is consumed and decided to write a four-part SFF series about it. I’m eagerly looking forward to the next chapter.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

I backed Bloodstained when it got put on Kickstarter a few years ago. It was shipped to me at… possibly the worst time since Shadowbringers was coming out very shortly after. My fiancé and I played ours for a short bit, felt very positive about the game, then dropped it to play Shadowbringers. We didn’t return to it until maybe September/October? Both of us ended up getting our Platinum Trophies for it so we both played through everything the game had to offer.

Bloodstained is a good experience, but not without its issues. I played on PS4 and I’ve had a few outright crashes or some glitching into walls early enough that I couldn’t come out of them again due to not having the required skill to try to get out of it. I also felt like the game meandered or had a bit of padding in its earlier stages). Later on, you realise you have to put in the farming work to have a better and faster time not unlike its Igavania counterparts, but I did feel like the drop rates prior to actually working towards higher luck stats/drop shards were low enough almost to the point of unfair or deliberately wasting my time. I also felt as though there were too many weapon types; with adequate shard use and shard grinding eventually you can settle into one weapon type that suits your playstyle or eventually use the gun for everything when you get the special hat quest reward).

However, I’m speaking about this game as someone who platinumed it which requires a lot of farming and synthesis. As a player going through the main campaign, I think the maps are adequate. The backgrounds are very lovingly crafted, and the music is absolutely one of the best of the year. Boss design is also fun and rewarding, requiring the player to learn how all the different weapon types work, adequate backstepping and closing in, and boss patterns. If you suck, the game will show you that you suck very quickly and deliberately. Essentially towards the end, I felt as though Bloodstained tried very hard to cater to fans of the metroidvania style of game, and the classicvania style of game. I personally don’t think it completely succeeded but for a first time experience of trying to combine the two into one, it did its job with preparation for another game.

I also feel like some criticism was lobbed towards the game’s narrative for being told in library/book entries, and while I understand that (I actually couldn’t open all of the books for fear of my game crashing), I don’t think elaborate cutscenes and continuous dialogue would work well with this game’s flow. Bloodstained prioritizes gameplay elements and player exploration over anything else, and to be honest, I’d rather it happen that way than with long elaborate cutscenes. I also felt as though I got more out of the game because I’d played the 8-bit prequel as well.

Overall, Bloodstained is a passable experience. I’m glad I played it, and I’m glad I put the work in to try to make the game a better experience. I got what I wanted out of the game for as much as I backed it and I hope they try again with a similar formula because this is a very good first step.

The Touryst

Sometimes when I see a game with voxel graphics, I feel pretty compelled to pick it up because it looks so darn lovingly rendered and it usually ends up being fun. The Touryst does a good job with its graphical style and visiting new islands is a complete delight because of it. It looks like a game with style, and performs super-well on the Switch. It’s also one of the freshest games I’ve played in a while.

Basically you’re playing a blocky dude with a moustache who just wants to have a good time but when he gets to TOWA Monument, he’s told he has to find monument cores to unlock the world’s secrets. And then you can do whatever you want. The different islands have their own little personalities: there’s an island called Fijy which is volcanic, there’s Ybiza with a bunch of dudes chilling on the beach and passed out on their chairs, there’s Santoryn which is just Greece, and a few other places that are essentially recreations of real-world places.

As you explore, there’s a lot of stuff to do. A variety of things to do. There are puzzles and mechanics that don’t necessarily overstay their welcome, you can play footy, you can play spelunker, you can take helicopter rides, you can take pictures, get stuff for a museum, surf, play rhythm games…. It’s your vacation, do what you want. It’s a little like Vegas. Unlike Vegas, you can use your ever-increasing money and diamonds to get new moves for your moustached character to reach new objects.

As a little game where you can do whatever you want little by little, and makes for a smooth experience, I’m glad I picked up the Touryst after asking another person what they thought of it. It has great puzzles, lots of stuff to do and explore and see, and ton of minigames for whatever mood you feel like you’re in. The game is fairly short, but I’m very glad the holiday doesn’t overstay its welcome.

A Short Hike

A Short Hike places you in the shoes of a bird who is utterly determined to walk to the top of Hawk Peak to get signal for her phone. I totally understand; sometimes you’ve gotta do what you gotta do.

But the game allows you to undertake that journey however you want to. You can go right away and finish up and get that darn signal. Or you can take your time and we’ll build that bridge when we get there. There are different types of terrains to explore if you opt to take the scenic route… and it’s rewarding to do so. You can find treasure, you can water a flower, you can talk to the Animal Crossing-esque characters to do some sidequests, you can do whatever you want.

I’m sorry to say that when the game introduced fishing, I spent a lot of my time doing that. Fishing ruins me. The completionist in me wanted to fish. But the whole thing is that you don’t have to do any of this. If you want to finish the game, you can absolutely positively focus on that and the game doesn’t pressure you for it.

And that’s one of the things I like about it. It’s just whatever about the whole ordeal. I don’t feel like I’m completely and utterly missing out if I don’t decide to do something. Even the task of getting Golden Feathers to progress is fine since you only need eight for it, and the game easily gives you enough rewards to get four or five before sidequests or exploration is factored in.

Sometimes you just need to take a walk and kind of think of nothing just to clear your head. And A Short Hike accomplishes that very well.

Worldend Syndrome

In my effort to try to find other games to play in 2019 because I’d fallen a little out of love with FFXIV, I realised that taking baby steps with visual novels and bite-sized games would be the best idea to try to get back into traditional games (particularly since I was, and am, still questioning whether I like games as a hobby or not). On a whim, I decided to download a boatload of visual novel demos one night and tried a bunch of them out. Worldend Syndrome’s demo didn’t exactly grab me until perhaps halfway through the demo when I a) realised that this demo was long af, and b) nothing appeared what it had seemed as I kept going through it and the characters were enjoyable.

So I decided to get the game and dragged my fiancé along for the ride. It’s one of those standard decision-making/pick which girl you want and go down her route VNs but it didn’t really feel skeezy or ecchi other than one particular point in each girl’s story where you get confessed to. You go through the VN as an unnamed protagonist who is visiting his cousin over the summer, and you and your friends get dragged into a school club whose focus revolves around folklore. The town the protagonist finds himself in is haunted by the Yomibito, spirits of the undead who look exactly like regular people but are eventually driven mad enough to kill.

One of the things that drew me to this visual novel was its assortment of animated backgrounds. They colourful and gorgeous. Every CG looks nice and coloured well, and the backgrounds for each area you visit are so beautiful and makes every single location easy to settle into. The cast is also surprisingly decent, where I expected to hate a few people but I ended up being okay with them because they were written well and weren’t as tropey as I had expected. I was also very pleased that the character that you were roleplaying as wasn’t skeezy when put into situations where he could have been, and that he treated the girls very well (though I won’t deny that there are some spots where behaviour was questionable but it doesn’t happen as often). Because the characters were written adequately enough, the game’s true ending route comes together very well and very naturally to a point where I could seriously believe that every character got along with one another to make sure the emotional impact of the mystery was satisfying.

In order to finish Worldend Syndrome, you have to do each route. A few characters’ routes don’t get unlocked until halfway through the game or even until the very end. The game also remembers everything you’ve done when it autosaves the system data on the world map, so if you need to reload a save to figure out someone’s schedule or if you mess up, it’s relatively easy to come back to something you’ve missed. I’ve played a lot of multiple route VNs before and Worldend Syndrome is easily one of the better VNs that allows the player to skip through to something they’ve missed or skip through previously-viewed text for another route.

As it is, Worldend Syndrome doesn’t really try to do anything spectacular, nor does it try to stand out like other visual novels of 2019 have (ie: Ciconia, presumably AI but I only tried the demo and I hated parts of the script, sorry). It does its job and tells its story which has a very good payoff in the end.

Judgement

I bought my fiancé Judgement earlier this year, as I had retired from playing Ryu ga Gotoku after Dead Souls/Ishin, and he was still playing the series religiously. I watched him play through part of it and I felt compelled to get my own copy because the combat looked nice, and the characters were compelling enough that I felt comfortable picking it up.

Judgement follows former lawyer Takayuki Yagami who is now a detective. His tale is one of redemption and conspiracies, reminiscent of some Phoenix Wright games (which this game gives clever nods to when the protagonist is in the courtroom). Yagami is more serious and down-to-earth than Kiryu is so the tone of the game feels quite different than other RGG games (or at least the ones I’ve played).

It still feels like a regular RGG game where you’re still wandering through Kamurocho, you’re still getting into fights with randos and Yakuza dudes, you date girls, you go to buy food, you play minigames, etc. But it isn’t as big as a standard RGG game; because you stay only in the one area, the cast is smaller, you get a job board to get your sidequests from, and the story itself is fairly short and sweet. I actually prefer that as a lapsed RGG player since it’s easier to get back into the games this way.

Judgement, however, disappointed me just a little in how little you spend in the courtroom. You’re given opportunities to present evidence, do some suspect tailing, use your smartphone to catch a cheating husband, or use a drone to search for evidence. I felt like when you had to use the drone to search for evidence, it ruined the pacing a little. The tailing missions are also reminiscent of Assassin’s Creed, and no that isn’t a good thing! Due to this, I felt like Judgement was not necessarily a great detective game but it did a decent job of trying to mold the RGG experience to a different main character.

Yagami can… fight… for some reason so he can beat up whatever randos come up to him on the streets. He’s actually more acrobatic than I remember Kiryu being in previous RGG games. He can kick off objects, he’s hard to back into a corner, he can do wall-flips, etc. It’s also much easier to earn XP where it’s all in one bar so you can do whatever you want to fill it up like play darts and just put stuff into his lockpicking. As a lapsed fan, the streamlining feels okay. The streamlining for combat also feels good because if you fights go on too long, the popo can come for you and you’d get fined, so emphasis is on finishing fights cleanly and quickly.

Overall, as a lapsed RGG fan, the way Judgement looks and feels and wraps up its twists and turns was really exciting for me. It may not have as many things to do as other RGG games, but honestly I think being a leaner experience was better and thus didn’t make the game overstay its welcome. I also am eagerly awaiting RGG7 since I enjoyed the demo a lot and I think the new protagonist can carry the series the way Yagami carried Judgement.

Cadence of Hyrule

Sometimes, after my fiancé and I bought our Switch, I’d wake up, go brush my teeth, and return to bed just to see my fiancé awake and playing Cadence of Hyrule. I was perplexed as it’s been ages since he’d willingly played a Zelda game, and his hands are super-huge for the joycons so he doesn’t like using them much.

You can easily say that Cadence of Hyrule is just a Crypt of the Necrodancer reskin with Zelda stuff all over it, but feels pretty clever in that it uses stuff from roguelikes and a rhythm game and makes the A Link to the Past world feel incredibly fresh. Bosses, especially, feel very fresh. Enemies move according to the rhythm and have a unique pattern that’s easily memorized so you can fall into the rhythm and take advantage of. If you’ve played Necrodancer, you’ll probably feel at home in this aspect, especially since the maps are also randomised (which leads different playthroughs feeling fresh).

The Zelda feels comes from recreating tunes from older Zelda games in puzzles, the magnificent sprite art, the great Zelda remixes, a simple-enough story, and a standard set of things to find in each procedurally generated dungeon. You also find a variety of traditional items like the bow, the bombs, boomerang… and a spear? It’s a nice blend of Zelda and Necrodancer.

The caveat is that it takes a little getting used to, since you’re not exactly used to not being able to freely move in a Zelda game. But when you do get used to it, it feels good. Everything is pretty expendable and if you die, you don’t feel like you necessarily lose a lot since you can accrue it all easily enough again. It’s unpredictable and that random roguelike nature is something that makes the Zelda experience feel fresh.

Spirit Hunter: Death Mark

My fiancé and I were trying to find spooky games to play for Halloween that wouldn’t make me squeamish because despite my profession dealing with analysis of body parts and human body fluids, I can’t see that kind of stuff on TV or in games in a realistic sense. It grosses me out. At least when it’s in front of me, it’s already out and off someone’s body and in a fume hood/biosafety cabinet and I didn’t have to see how it happened. My fiancé picked up Spirit Hunter: Death Mark on a sale we went through it together.

Death Mark is a tale about horror-themed urban legends and a curse that needs to be broken. People get marked with a crimson bite mark in the game’s H City and they eventually develop amnesia and die. A group of people live and gather at a spirit medium’s mansion (who is dead upon arrival). The only hint to break the curse in this mansion is a little talking doll named Mary. The protagonist eventually goes through several mysteries in an effort to break his curse and stop others from dying.

Death Mark does some surprisingly well-crafted worldbuilding. Each spirit you deal with has a well-told backstory, sometimes especially ghoulish (particularly the bonus post-game episode, the first episode, and the one episode with the telephone booth). The game excels with psychological horror and the enemies involved in each boss battle assist in making the player feel that way as well. The backgrounds also lend well to this as while they are simplistic, the shading and colours used help to execute a sense of dread. One particular chapter harkens back to Japan’s Aokigahara, and the backgrounds used connect very well to that particular location so that it feels super-eerie.

Regardless, Death Mark relies a lot on its text to establish its atmosphere and as someone who reads stuff like R07 VNs and other regular VNs with a lot of text, I was okay with that. The localization was well-done, albeit with some issues that would have been caught in editing but overall it carried the story very well.

There are boss battles prior to the end of each chapter, where you must use each item you find in your exploration segments. You need to use specific items in a specific order (even with the correct party setup) in order to achieve a good ending for that particular chapter (and thus eventually the game). I thought this was an interesting mechanic and while it got a little tired depending on the spirit, it showcased how creepy some of them can be on your screen.

Unfortunately, Death Mark does not have a variety for its soundtrack and it’s almost disappointing that the same piano tunes and boss themes played repeatedly as I felt it detracted from the experience.

Otherwise, I felt like Death Mark was a short and sweet horror experience that played into urban legends and folklore experiences. I loved the little vignettes that eventually ramped up to a central story point. I hope the sequel is good when we get around to it.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

So my fiancé and I are doing this thing where we’ve started buying one copy of a game so we’d both own it together and go through it together. Sekiro and Man of Medan were two of those games this year.

Sekiro isn’t really like Souls. Eventually you’ll come to learn that very quickly when the game throws a boss at you and if you try to play like Souls, you’re not going to get the job done. It will show you that you never learned how to parry properly and you’re going to have to go back and learn it. Or if you didn’t grab a prosthetic that will make the job easier, you’re gonna have to do that too.

The game is interesting in that you aren’t exactly whittling down health bars all the time; you’re striking properly so you can overwhelm their posture bars, find an opening, and go in for the kill. Enemy health bars are essentially secondary to that posture bar. You have your own posture bar so you’ve got to learn how to parry properly. Sometimes you need to parry complete combos in order to deliver posture damage back to an enemy. It’s all about getting into the flow and rhythm of combat. And you must beat bosses in order for you to get a stat boost, so being able to beat a boss lies in your skill, and not necessarily your level/equipment.

Sekiro is Souls-like in its storytelling and worldbuilding. You can run around rooftops and areas to find secrets off the beaten path. You go back and forth between areas and speak to different NPCs to find out their backstories. The plot is also told via NPC conversations with the main characters. At first it’s a little dry but the story opens up eventually. It also has some great voiced NPCs for quests (one quest in particular had voicework that made me feel so sorry for the character that I was like “we need to get the proper item for this guy please don’t make him suffer”).

It feels rewarding to put in the work in order to beat the bosses, make it so you don’t resurrect as often to make people sick, and meet whatever standard Sekiro is throwing at you. It lets the player know that they’ve met that standard, and then throws another boss phase at them so you have to get even better.

Owl I’m looking at you.

Super Kirby Clash

My fiancé and I bought a Switch together this year (which, outside of dinner and movies and clothes, etc. was one of our major purchases together). We downloaded a few demos to try the control scheme out, including Super Kirby Clash. I am aware that this game is probably old, but hey it’s still going and it’s still being supported and I’m catching up.

I’m probably putting it here due to bias, but I think It’s really cute and the hats are super-adorable. I love getting new hats and new weapons for my little Kirby. It’s fairly standard as far as a “mobile experience” is concerned and playing it a little when I have the time to and hacking away at it little by little is rewarding when I get a new hat or new gear. My fiancé and I played it in multiplayer as well, which felt a lot like Kirby’s Return to Dream Land.

It’s pretty inoffensive and I haven’t paid real-life money for anything in it, and I still feel like I’m progressing. So as a Kirby game with light RPG elements (ie: something I’ve wanted for years and years), it’s nice to finally see realised.

Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom

An artist I commission very often from convinced me to move this game further up in queue than I originally had it when we were talking about games we were playing after finishing Shadowbringers’ main campaign.

Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom is the spiritual successor inspired by Wonder Boy III, with the formula being modernized for a new era. It feels fast, and it looks soooooooo pretty. The tracks are bumpin’ too. It’s also a little tough but with every difficult section successfully platformed through, you feel really good about it.

You play as a plucky boy named Jin whose uncle is an insano who turns everyone in the kingdom into animals. After you experience sweet freedom as a human boy platforming across things easily for like 15 minutes, Jin’s uncle turns him into a pig. Whoops. From there the platforming gets a little harder and you need to learn how to manipulate different forms and different spells in order to get across various sections.

Different animal forms give you different skills. Pig form allows you to sniff out secrets literally, snake form lets you cling to walls and go through tiny passages, frog has a sticky tongue for swinging, and lion form lets you go through obstacles. You need to use these forms well to platform well enough to get through each area and finish the game. Being successful at platforming in this game feels good and fulfilling and satisfying. As you unlock more, platforming experiences get more and more complex with more obstacles put in your way, so in essence it feels like the opposite of a standard metroidvania. Playing both Bloodstained and this in one year felt like playing polar opposites. That said, the checkpointing in Monster Boy is really good. Game Atelier knew what they were doing.

The bosses by contrast were really easy and it’s nice to take the time to look at the art for each boss. All of the effects are also super-nice. Playing Monster Boy on a 4K TV is quite a visual treat for its boss sections, its town section, and its platforming sections. The colours are off-the-charts. Each animal sprite has its own set of unique animations: the piggy farts and looks like >_>, froggy looking at flies, etc. And the music is so good. If this game were a 2019 game I’d definitely put its soundtrack on my list, but it isn’t. It’s a nice blend of new and old stuff and it’s a delight to hear in-context as encouragement to keep going when you fail a platforming section.

Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom is a faithful representation and homage of the old Wonder Boy games. It’s filled with references and secrets and awesome art, and I’m glad to have been convinced to move it up my queue for this year.

Most Disappointing Game: Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers

I love Final Fantasy XIV. It’s brought me closer to so many people in recent years and I’ve met so many more through it. Playing this game means so much to me and I want the best for it for years to come. It’s one of the reasons why I’m so critical about it. If I hated this game, I would stop playing and honestly, I wouldn’t care about its future. I will say this before getting started: I like Shadowbringers’ story so far (we aren’t going to be finished with its story until 5.3). I don’t think It’s necessarily as consistent as Heavensward, but I think Shadowbringers’ story is the most Final Fantasy story we’ve gotten since perhaps FF10. Truly, it’s the best we’ve seen for the series this decade.

I had a lot of hopes and hype for Shadowbringers. I hated Stormblood, for a myriad of reasons: social reasons, gameplay reasons, and narrative reasons. The direction Shadowbringers was going and all the trailers made it seem like it was going to be fresh and exciting and new. My fiancé and I (and a few others) swapped servers+data centers in advance of the expansion for a fresh start, to boot. I watched the Job Actions trailer over and over and tried to decide what I was going to eventually main and gear up because I didn’t really have a main in Stormblood due to the combat changes and how easy things became for certain things.

During a live letter, they mentioned that they’re changing how things work in battle, and that’s when I became a little cautious. I was hoping for the best leading up to release and then I saw the scholar/healer changes and got very worried. I changed mains in Stormblood because playing Scholar was freaking horrible at the start of Stormblood.

I eventually had to change mains at the start of Shadowbringers because I was not having fun playing Scholar. For people who didn’t bother to level a healer at all, the writing was on the wall for healers during Stormblood. Essentially, it introduced an age of healing where you barely ever used your GCDs to heal. You mostly used OGCDs and preplanned shields. 90% of the time if you wanted to be a good healer, you’d mostly DPS. I don’t think I’ve cast a GCD heal at all in SB and ShB content unless things were going super-wrong.

The healing changes introduced in Shadowbringers made us think that things were going to change, that things were going to be harder to heal. I had my doubts, however, because all fights are scripted and if they were to introduce a substantial change to incoming damage, they would have to make it so most people (casual, midcore, hardcore, less experienced newbies, experienced folks) would be used to It and could handle it. There was no way they were going to introduce more difficulty given that subscription numbers were increasing.

And so, healers during Shadowbringers got some damage skills taken away, but in their place, they were given more tools to heal with:

- White Mage came away from this as a very well-rounded healer at launch. It had its damage spells, it had a damage spell with a stun, it finally had long-standing and easily useable mitigation, it has substantial MP recovery, and it has a damage spell that rewards you for using three GCD heals to make up for damage lost. White Mage still making out like a bandit in 5.1.

- Scholar felt dramatically different and didn’t feel as solid as it used to be. It had most of its damage tools taken away, the usefulness of its fairy was decreased because let’s be honest it was super-overpowered, it got one of its fairies and its AoE esuna taken away, and it was given its PvP move to act as an AoE that doesn’t have another effect. I had to completely unlearn everything I did as scholar in the last 5-6 years in order to play current scholar. Current 5.1 scholar is overpowered as heck and I don’t feel as satisfied to play it in SB/ShB content.

- AST LOL. All the cards are balance. MP regen is what. Heals are what. Everything is just what. Other fun skills were removed. That said, I really like AST just because it feels like I have to work twice as hard to achieve the same effect the other healers bring to the table.

So eventually with all of these changes, we had assumed that healing was going to be harder. It wasn’t. It’s the same experience and all we’re doing is pressing one single button all the time. I barely have to heal in dungeons. I barely have to heal in raid unless my party members step in stupid. I just can’t bring myself to play healer every single day anymore, and I love healing in this game. Or I loved it back when it was more dynamic. I just press one button over and over and over and over and over and maybe sometimes another but I just press one button a lot. It’s really sad and it makes me miss old Cleric Stance of all things.

I like Shadowbringers’ story. I felt rewarded playing through it as someone who’s played the game for years and did everything when it was in-content. So for me, it was like a good reunion. There were a lot of points where the story dragged or felt rocky. I felt like the start of the 5.0 campaign was utterly boring and poorly paced. It picked up again, then slowed down again, then picked up again, then got REALLY BAD, then picked up again for a good finish. I don’t think it’s as consistent as Heavensward’s 3.0 campaign, but it was very solid and made up for the 4.0 campaign.

However, story is only 20% of the experience for me. The rest of the time, I need to actually play the game. I actually liked the levelling and crafting changes and new skills they brought in during 5.0 because leveling a crafter never felt easier. I felt like I still had to work hard but the payoff came quickly and my macros still worked as well as they did from during Stormblood. I also used my Stormblood melds and Stormblood equipment for the entire levelling experience and had to make concessions for some of my macros as time went on. I still had to know what my skills did, basically. The 5.1 crafting/gathering changes kind of make me want to craft less since I don’t feel like I have to solve a puzzle anymore and to be honest, everyone crafts now so you make far less money than you previously did. The desynth changes also made it so that most of my markets tanked since what’s the point of gathering half the materials when desynth makes those materials easily accessible. I’m not saying to gatekeep at all, but I feel like the experience should have been a little harder (ie: like the Ixali experience where you had to learn what your skills did or desynth shouldn’t be this easy to keep the market fairly balanced). My server is a crafting server so I am more impacted in general from this. That said, I don’t have anything to spend gil on so it doesn’t matter, I guess. I just feel far less inclined to participate in what was one of my favourite pastimes in XIV.

I mained Ninja which got killed in 5.0. I was already dealing with the servers moving from East Coast to West Coast, so adding a bunch of stuff to squeeze into your TA window in 10 seconds in Shadowbringers utterly killed the job for me. 5.1 Ninja throws me off as someone who played this game since the time Ninja was introduced, and I can’t make myself play it. The current opener is the Doton opener (which is something I didn’t like in SB at all) and I can’t always rely on my tank to bring the thing to my Doton. That, and making it so you do different things per every other or every third TA just makes the job a little unpalatable for me at 80. I’m one of those people who wants TA to go. I don’t like that Ninja’s become the TA bot in recent years. I can still do well with it. People still throw buffs at me, but I don’t find enjoyment in the job anymore and I hope we get a proper retool in 6.0.

I switched back to ranged. Thankfully Bard hasn’t changed as much since SB (though I still prefer HW Bard like a weirdo), and Dancer is one of those “I worked too damn long today and I just wanna do the mindless brainless rotation” jobs. I miss old Machinist oddly enough. It felt really good when you played it well and pulled off a decent wildfire. Now it’s a little easier and I don’t feel as fulfilled playing it. That said, it’s probably the best incarnation of the job since it’s sad little introduction in 3.0.

Even tanking is substantially easier and that’s a mostly good thing. It sucked going into a low level dungeon and having trouble keeping aggro due to the level syncing and your DPS’ stats. Now you can just turn your stance on and go to town without losing any damage potency like you used to. I kind of miss swapping stances after I’ve established aggro though, because you could tell the difference between a good tank and a bad/less practiced tank if they didn’t bother to swap stances in a fight. Tanks came out of this expansion very balanced, though. They might need some work here and there (warrior I’m looking at you), but overall, they came out the best out of the three roles.

Other than that, you have monks not knowing what they should be, samurai continuously getting buffed and nerfed, black mage staying consistent, red mage being lol, summoner getting changed to the point where now it’s overpowered, among other DPS changes. DPS overall don’t have as much synergy so you can take any job you want to into raid and it’ll get the job done. That said if you want to do as much damage as possible, you’re generally going to take the same few classes into the raid if you’re less educated about them. And I feel like the lack of synergy or utility between classes or even the loss of something like mana shift makes the whole experience a little boring. It’s very “f you, I got mine” or the onus is on the player for their own personal burdens and no one’s really helping each other unless you’re a dancer, trick attack bot, dragoon or bard.

I really hope the other pieces of content are substantial but what I’ve seen aren’t exactly what I had in mind. Boss refights with an alternate version is really neat but I didn’t really want that for this raid tier. I wanted something more original given what we had to deal with in Omega. I don’t really care for the Nier Automata crossover because, again, I wanted something original to the XIV lore and the First. I think doubling down on Blue Mage is a bad idea and while some folks like its party-based content now, I can’t bring myself to keep doing the content given that it’s clear they don’t know what to do with it (or didn’t know what to do with it). With one dungeon coming per patch I have to question what’s happening internally or what they’re working on. I know SE is weird internally and I really hope that the kind of stuff I’ve read in previous postmortem articles isn’t happening.

Either way, I’m really disappointed that I want to stop playing XIV so much when it’s the most popular among my friends and followers because it’s so dissatisfying to me and it’s the most accessible that it’s ever been. I hope things get better eventually but going by what I think they have in store and their old reliable formula, I don’t have hope. I’m tired of the formula and I feel like it needs a shakeup. Overall, I’ve been less happy playing FFXIV than I’ve ever been and it makes me feel really sad.

#goty 2019 #ciconia when they cry #bloodstained #the touryst #a short hike #worldend syndrome #judgment #cadence of hyrule #spirit hunter death mark #sekiro #super kirby clash #shadowbringers

20 notes · View notes

danganronpasurvivoraskblog · 4 years

Text

Girl Talk

This place is actually kinda cozy.

Well, I live by myself, like I said, so whatever mess there is, you can blame it on me.

*Komaru walks into the living room of Kanon’s apartment, where she’ll be staying for the evening. Kanon has a kotatsu set up, which Toko is already nuzzling under.

Mmm...It’s waaaarm...

Mind if I squeeze in?

Knock yourself out. There’s enough room for a few people.

*Komaru and Kanon snuggle under the kotatsu and sigh happily.

Excuse me?

Oh. Hey there Hatsudoki. Are you ok?

I was wondering where my client was...There was a matter of which I needed to talk to him about.

But...I can’t seem to find him.

Oh, Kuripa and Yasu are downstairs right now. Kuripa’s trying to teach Yasu how to use an electric baton better in case he needs to fight...

[Downstairs]

AAAAAAAAAHHHH!!! STOP CHASING ME!

THEN FIGHT BACK YOU COWARD, FIGHT BACK!!

Anyway, I’m sure they’re doing alright...But I wouldn’t interrupt them if I were you.

I see...Well, I guess I’ll just wait for him to come back...

*She begins to head into the kitchen.

Huh? Wait, you’re leaving?

I’m not leaving. I’m just going to wait for Kurafto in the kitchen.

Isn’t that a little bit...boring?

Why don’t you join us?

*Kibin looks at Komaru with a surprised expression.

Are you...asking me to stay?

Uh-huh. We haven’t gotten to chat yet, and I want to get to know you.

Sorry but...I don’t really like having close relations with my clients...

Kuripa’s your client. He’s the one paying you, so we’re a separate entity, aren’t we?

I’m pretty eager to talk too. I’m curious as to how someone so young could be a bounty hunter...

Hmmm...Very well...If you insist...

Huh? What’s up? You look a little red?

N-Not true...!

*A few minutes later, Kibin is snuggled under the kotatsu, trying to hide her satisfied expression.

It feels...nice...

Haha...You act all serious, but you’re really just a big softy, huh?

...

That was a joke...

I-I see...It was a joke...

So...What’s your stories?

Huh?

What do you mean?

You want me to talk about myself...something I’m not that good at...But I’d like the three of you to go first.

Please, tell me about yourselves.

What’s there to tell really? For the most part, I’m just a normal girl...

No normal girl has an iron leg...

Well, that’s...a recent addition.

I was part of the demon hunting game that the original Warriors of Hope played in Towa City over 8 years ago...That’s where I learned to use a hacking gun.

Yeah, same here.

I was kind of dragged along. But that’s how I met Komaru and the other warriors.

If I understand correctly, the Warriors of Hope are your friends now, aren’t they? Why make friends with old enemies?

Well, to be honest, they were just as much victims of the Demon Hunting as the adults were.

Monaca manipulated both the adults and the kids, for reasons everyone believed to be making a paradise for kids to live peacefully...

But in the end...She just wanted to slaughter a bunch...And she wanted Komaru to become the successor to Junko Enoshima.

But...well...She made me this leg, so I can’t really hate her...

Well, I suppose people can atone for their misdeeds...I can’t complain on my lonesome...

What about you Nakajima?

Well, my story is pretty similar...

I’m from a pretty rich family. My dad was a director at TAT Television.

That’s a pretty large TV conglomerate...!

The largest in the world actually.

I used to be super infatuated with my cousin Leon, and when we got into high school, I signed up to be manager of his baseball team in order to be close to him.

You were infatuated with your own cousin?

I know...I’m weird...I’m sorry...

D-Don’t apologize, I’m not judging.

I can’t judge...My love life has been a total mess...

But...I still have feelings for Master Byakuya...!

Charming...

But...my real question is how are you associated with Hagakure?

I met him by chance. At first I thought that he was just a random citizen, caught up in the whole mess, so I used my hacking gun to save him...

We...didn’t have the best relationship when we first met...Yasu realized that if he brought me back safely to my father, he would be able to pay off his remaining debt. From then on, he began treating me royally...

Tch...Selfish, money-grubbing dumbass...

Um...is he really that bad?

He wasn’t entirely to blame either...To be honest my own intentions weren’t very...pure...either.

What do you mean?

I hated the Future Foundation. When I found out that Leon had died in the killing game, I resented them and blamed them for allowing him to die...

And so...I swore that after I escaped the demon hunting game...I’d take them all down...and kill every last one of their members...!

Jesus...

But...that didn’t happen, did it?

No...Yasu found out...I’d wrote about it in my pocketbook and he somehow read it. And when I found this out...I...

You tried to kill him?

...

Yes...I tried to strangle him to death...

But as that was happening, Kotoko Utsugi showed up and tried to kill me...And she almost succeeded...

But...Yasu powered up a train and rammed into Utsugi’s robot, then he scooped me up and ran away with me.

We nearly died...since we were being chased by both Utsugi and Daimon...But no matter what, he refused to be the helpless guy that he usually was, and he refused to let me go.

Wow...He really did that...? Maybe I judged Hiro a little too quickly...

Yeah, maybe he’s cooler than we first thought.

[Downstairs]

HELP MEEEEEEEE! GOD! BUDDHA! SAVE ME PLEEEAAASSE!

RAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHH!!!!

Ok, what about you then?

Me?

Yeah, it’s your turn! Go on, what’s your story?

...

Before the tragedy hit...I had a small family. I was an only child, and I lived with my parents.

When Junko Enoshima and the Remnants of Despair all attacked, one person came into my house and burnt everything down...

I escaped the blaze...but my parents weren’t so lucky...

In the years that the tragedy raged on for...The Future Foundation never found me...So I had to survive by myself...for so many years...

H-Hold on a second...Hatsudoki, how old are you?

Is that really important?

J-Just answer...I want to know if I’m doing the math right...

I’m 19.

Th-Then...if the tragedy first hit, and you lost your family, and were forced to survive in the apocalyptic wilds on your own over 10 years ago...then you would have been...!?

Holy shit...!

...It’s tough living in post-apocalyptic times...And I certainly did things that I wasn’t proud of.

In order to ensure my own survival, I killed anyone who had resources that I needed...For someone like me, it was get busy killing, or get busy dying...

Even after the area that I lived in at the time began going through rejuvenation after the killing game, I still had blood on my hands and no money...And that’s where I first got a job...

Someone approached you and told you you could kill for money, huh?

Yes...and I accepted.

As much as it pained me, I only knew two skills...how to survive, and how to kill...I couldn’t cook well enough, I had no social skills, I didn’t have an education...

I had nothing that would allow me to live a normal life...

Assassin work was really all there was, huh?

After I went through training, I was free to live on my own...But from then on, I had a goal in mind...

I wanted to gain enough money that would last me a lifetime. I wanted to get so rich that I’d never have to live life like a slumdog again...

I wanted to live the rest of my life peacefully...So I began to get better at my job...I charged more because of it...and I also ended up saving money...Just so I could achieve that dream. It’s selfish...But I want it more than anything...

No...After all you’ve been through...You probably deserve a happy life...

You don’t like being a hitman, do you? You just want to be done with that life...

...Who, other than a psychopath, could enjoy a job where you kill people unjustly...?

Hatsudoki...

I always thought something was slightly off...And now I know what it is...

Those clothes of yours barely fit you...Is that because...?

I only own a few sets of clothes. I don’t waste money on new ones when these ones still just about fit me...

...

Hey...we’re back...

Oh, hey guys! How’d it go...?

I thought I was gonna die...!

Ooookay then...?

Seriously, go easy on me Ripa! I’m not used to fighting like you are!

How many times do I have to say, don’t give me a stupid nick-

...!

Actually, I like that one. It sounds like “Reaper.”

It’s getting late...we should probably turn in for the night...

Agreed...so, what were the sleeping arrangements again?

I’m sleeping on the floor in Kanonball’s room, Toko and Komaru get the other bedroom...

Doki-Doki’s on the sofa and Reapers on the futon in the front room.

Doki-Doki?

Alright then...

Goodnight you guys!

#danganronpa survivor #danganronpa #danganronpa ultra despair girls #danganronpa ultra despair hagakure #danganronpa 1 #drae #dr1 #oc #komaru naegi #kanon nakajima #toko fukawa #kibin hatsudoki #kuripa kurafto #yasuhiro hagakure #ultra despair gang arc

16 notes · View notes

danganronpa-ea · 4 years

Text

DR: EA2 - prolouge part 1

after some time, I decided to post chapters up here from now on - so of course introduction to the cast after a long while so anyway I hope you enjoy this.

Part 2

Also all credit goes to respective owners, so let’s begin!

Silence… A crash land… voices… they are screaming,

It’s all I can hear, all I know - I… was that my own voice, or was it other people that were on…? I-.

I… I got to open my eyes, I… need to open them right now.

Yes… that’s right, I need to open them.

…

I slowly open my eyes, I look around it seems things were thrown around and no people in site, what… happen?

Okay back up, let’s see if I can get my barring’s on this situation or at least try to remember what happen to me…

Right, I know what my name is… I’m Okamoto Fuji, I’m a teenage girl heading to… Hope’s Peak Academy! My talent is the Ultimate Public Speaker – I live in Towa City, giving a speech to a group of people – like family of the other Ultimate’s, well most of them were around that were… in my class, I think it was Class 76-B.

Yes! Yes, that’s it… I just finish a speech and-.

My head… it hurts but I remember now.

I gave a sigh of relief – I was done the speech, I had practice speech over and over in the mirror – even doing these speeches I still get butterflies in my stomach but I guess it be understandable… after, I’m pretty much heading to that one school I kept hearing about.

Hope’s Peak Academy…

I had walk off the stage as I notice people were saying their goodbyes to their friends and family… except for me, my… family wasn’t around to congratulate me, especially my-.

“Oh, getting on the plane already? Shouldn’t you go talk to any of your friends or family before we head off?”

I was walking up the stairs and met him, it was the pilot who was going to bring our class to Hope’s Peak. His question felt like he was concern for me but I shook my head

“I told my friends I was going to leave before I began my speech as for my family…” I pause as I look over at the crowd saying their goodbyes to those they knew well, but then I shook my head. “An-anyway, I actually wanted to get to my seat already! I don’t want to lose my spot.” I say, trying to change the subject which the pilot chuckled a bit. “Well – if you say so, holler if you need anything, okay?”

I walk into the plane and made my way to my seat as placing my luggage above the overhead bin as I took my seat – my eyes were getting heavy and I was tired. I stay up all night preparing for that speech and wanted to just take a nap – I pull out my player as I put in the headphones as I began to place some music.

My eyes… they were slowly closing but I did notice some shadows appearing they… must be the other Ultimate’s, th-that’s it… that has to be then I’ll… meet them later.

…

I open my eyes once more, ye-yes… that’s right! I remember dozing off and listen to music while people were boarding on! I took off my seat belt and got up I took a look at the plane and… despite there being some things being thrown around it seem okay but no one was there it was totally empty.

I walk over to where the Pilot went but when I open the door… no one was inside, it was totally empty. No jacket, no bag, nothing – it was completely empty. I walk over to the pilot seat and notice that it was still functional… I think.

I had no knowledge of planes, sadly but anyway I got up and walk out of there I look up to where I place my luggage which I open it and seems my luggage was there! I took it out and began to open it…

Looks like my stuff was safe, nothing was stolen, thank god but… I notice there was this weird electronic device which look to be some iPad I pull it out and turn it on which.

I notice it had my information on it which… is a bit creepy, was someone spying on me when I was in the bathroom? How would they know my measurements, my birthday and… wait, they know my chest size as well?!

I shook my head as I put the Ipad to the side then I look out the window.

“Hu-huh? What in the… is that, snow?” I got up and try to look and yep – it was snow, and not too far off it was a … ski resort? What is going on here? It looks really cold as well.

I look at my luggage I should have a coat and a sweater, I better get change which I begin to change. I mean – no one was here. I bet no one would-.

“So, are we going to check up on that girl again… she seems really out of it.” “Well of course we are, we got to make sure she’s alive! I’m not letting a citizen of mine to-.” The door opens as 2 people walk in… on me changing, which I was about to unbutton my shirt.

The first one was a young man with spikey blue hair and red eyes which… his face was going as red at the site of me while the other was… a guy I think, who was taller than the other who had dark red hair and light blue eyes who had a darker skin tone but look away at what was to come next.

“Kyaaah!!! What are you doing!? Don’t you see I’m changing here!” I scream as I cover myself, face going really red since someone walked in on me, while the young man gesture to me really flustered. “Well excuse me but shouldn’t YOU be changing in the bathroom! Really anyone could walk in on you!” He scolded as look around.

Oh yeah… I pick up my clothes as I rush over to the bathroom to change, god damn I’m an idiot!

I lock the door as I began to change into some clothes, I could overhear the other 2 talking. “Well… guess we know she’s alive at least.” “Ye-yes, quite…” The boy spoke.

After a bit I finish putting on my clothes as I unlock the door and open it, dress in clothes fitting more for the climate. The pair look at me which the boy with blue hair cough into his fist.

“An-anyway now, seems your uh… awake now, how are you… feeling?” He asked, almost sounding worry which I scratched my arm – it had to be awkward to walk in on a girl changing for him. “ I-I’m fine… I guess I’m confused...? I’m not sure where we are at – I saw outside it was a… ski resort, do you know what’s going on?” I asked with another question.

It was silence for all Three of us, seems they had no clue what’s going on but the boy spoke once more.

“I’ll be honest, we’re just as confused as you are – all Sixteen of us woke up the same way, just as you did but I think we organized ourselves by my leadership!” He answered, seems like he spoke in a proud tone as the other finally spoke. “Then I’m curious why you didn’t wake her up…?” Suddenly the boy with blue hair got all flustered. “He-hey now! I wanted her to get her beauty sleep – it be quite rude to do that now! Besides, as about to run for Prime Minster I got to keep an eye on my civilians!” The boy spoke which I blinked.

Wait… are these 2 Ultimates? They had to be – but as I was about to ask that question the one with red hair spoke.

“So since your awake right now, can you… tell us, who you are now? I don’t think we got your name.” He spoke which I did forget to tell them. “Ah right, Well… I’m Okamoto Fuji, Ultimate Public Speaker and about you guys?” I asked, I was curious about this pair which the one with blue hair spoke.

“Ah right, well if you must know – I’m known as The Ultimate Politician, Ishikawa Chikao! I’m glad to see you unharmed and… with more clothes.” He spoke that last part pretty quietly as his face turn red.

Despite how confident he appears to be he is a bit… awkward, but I… think I can trust him. “So, you mention your planning to be the prime minster, Ishikawa-kun?” I asked Chikao which he nodded. “Why yes – I had plans to change the country after I graduate.” He answered as placing a hand on his chest which I can tell he was… quite serious about it. Then I turn my attention towards the taller fellow which they look to be as they spoke.

“…Hayashi Ryoko – I’m the Ultimate Survivalist and forgive Ishikawa for walking in on you.” I smiled as I nodded. “Well nice to meet you Hayashi-kun.” I stated as then Ryoko blinked. “…I’m actually a woman.” ‘She’ responded which then my face went red. “O-oh… right, sorry.” I apologize.

It was completely silent between the 2 of us, I wasn’t sure what to say to her but then she spoke. “So uh, with that talent of yours, I guess your good at surviving game shows of some kind…?” I asked which Ryoko shook her head. “No, I mostly was known for surviving many locations and had travel around the world to forbidden lands which… often ended in plane crashes which I get the feeling that this plane landing here might have been my fault too…” She spoke.

I frown a bit, she… didn’t seem to happy about this but then Ryoko look at me and shook my head. “Don’t feel bad, it tends to happen a lot of times and I’m not really good with planes anyway, I honestly could have taken a bus or even a boat but this was the only way to travel.” She assured me.

“Well, if you say so but… you mention you survive, does that mean you collect your own food, if that is the case? Is there any food here?” I asked which Ryoko look at the door. “I did look around after Ishikawa ask me to check, there looks to be fauna here.” The red head spoke with a slight smile on her face. Guess she has a liking towards nature. Then I turn my attention towards Chikao.

“So then, you mention there are other Ultimate’s here?” I asked as Chikao nodded. “I believe so, aside from us three – there are about thirteen of us including our teacher, which I guess you want to meet them?” He asked as I gave a quick nod. “Right then, let’s get going and will introduce you to them all!” He spoke as if excited to show me around.

He opens the door and walk right out which as I was putting my clothes away in my luggage, zipping it up and picking up the bag Ryoko walk over to me.

“Would you mind if I carry it for you?” Ryoko ask as I look at my bag. “Are you sure, Hayashi-san? I don’t want to be a burden to you.” I told her as she shook her head. “Nonsense – I can carry it just fine and I’ll bring it tone of the remaining rooms that are empty.” She spoke as I look at my bag as I gave it to her which the 2 of us left for outside.

Something tells me this will be a interesting experience…

As me and Ryoko walk down the stairs from the plane I notice that Chikao was talking to another pair of people – one was a girl around our age with pink hair and pink eyes, which she was wearing a purple hairband and a poncho of some kind which she was looking at her phone while another was an older women with the same pink hair and pink eyes like the other.. guess they must be related.

The older women look at a piece of paper and turn to me, she had a scowl on her face as if she already was judging me.

“Hmph, you better be glad were not Hope’s Peak otherwise you’d be at the principles office.” She spoke, her arms were cross. “Well excuse me! I was busy with my speech and I was tired and had to get ready by morning.” I told her which the women got more annoyed as she pointed her fan at me. “Now see here, young lady – as your teacher, you should learn to respect your elders.” She lectured me.

Oh… she’s a teacher I quickly change my attitude and nodded. “O-oh, you’re a teacher? Forgive me sensei, I didn’t realize that… um, my name is Okamoto Fuji.” I introduce myself as the older did scowl less which almost a smile appear.

“Heh – good, at least one of you can learn anyways. You may call me Kimura Kimika which I was a student at Hope’s Peak and my talent was the Ultimate Ikebana Artist.” She spoke almost like she was remembering as Chikao smiled. “Well at least you know how to respect your elders, Fuji-san.” I look at him then Mrs. Kimura sighed. “Yes, at least you’re a good example unlike… some people.”

Mrs. Kimura turn her attention to the girl who was messing with her phone until she notices us looking at her. “Huh? You… wanted to say something?” the girl asked as she put her phone away as Mrs. Kimura roll her eyes at the girl. “Well maybe if you pay attention to the conversation instead of focusing on that little phone of yours, we wouldn’t be explaining ourselves.” She began as the girl shook her head.

“But mother, I wanted to see if anyone left any messages for me but it seems the Wi-Fi is out… are we stuck here with no Wi-fi?” She spoke which Chikao frown. “That is worrisome – did you try to get any calls?” He asked which as the girl try to speak. “I try to but-.” “Sadly it seems we can’t call anyone here.” We turn to Mrs. Kimura who interrupted the girl which I can tell she went silent as looking towards her mother.

Something tells me that Mrs. Kimura’s daughter didn’t seem too happy. “Yes well, anyway – I didn’t tell you my name yet, right? Well – you can call me Kimura Tomoe, I’m known on the internet as ‘Starlight Blossoms’ or as of entering Hope’s Peak as the Ultimate Acapella Singer.” She introduces herself with a smile on her face which I try to recall that name.

“I… think I recall Stralight Blossom – I’ve seen some of your covers on Youtube! You have quite some talent, Kimura-san.” I told as Tomoe gasped in shock hearing. “Oh my, a fan? I’m quite happy to meet one at last and-!” “Yes yes, you met a fan of yours now dear, we have to go set up our rooms now come on.” She stated as taking her leave.

I notice Tomoe went silent again and sighed as shaking her head. “Mother always does this…” She mumbled as she turns to me with a sad smile. “I’m sorry, I have to go fix up my room, I hope we get to take more.” She says as turning away and walking after Mrs. Kimura.

They were quite the pair, like… any mother and daughter would be honestly. As then Ryoko look to be then at the pair as well. “We might want to set up your room too then…?” She asked me as I turn to her and nodded. “Yes, I suppose we should! C’mon – let’s go and take care of it.” I stated as the myself, Ryoko and Chikao all walk towards the resort.

As walking along, I took notice of the resort – I notice there were trees, snow and I even see a rabbit hopping by… this place is incredible.

As we walk in there – Ryoko went upstairs and I notice there were quite a few people, a boy, a girls and… is that a bear? It seems the bear and a young girl with purple who look to be a elementary school student who was holding the bear’s arm while they were watching a boy who look to be fixing up the TV which the girl gave a huff.

“C’mon c’mon – can you set it up faster? We been waiting 5 years!” “I think you got the time wrong…” The bear spoke as trying to calm the girl down as she gave puppy dog eyes. “Aww, don’t say that Mr. Bear… I wanted to watch some TV while someone works on my room and I was told to wait… I hate waiting so, can you please do it for me?” She commented as the bear look at her which then in some comedic fashion, he prepares his fist which then a boy who had dark skin, green eyes, gray hair with dark stripes and what looks to be a demon stood in front of the TV like as if protecting a child he had own.

“Wa-wait now, don’t destroy such a thing you 2! The man of thunders is working as quickly as he can on it. So, wait until the flash of inspiration comes along!” He yelled pointed at the duo of troublemakers which the bear took this as a challenge.

“You want to test me? Fine, man vs nature – will fight!” Oh dear this was turning into a brawl which the girl look… weirdly happy about it as she sat down to watch this. “He-hey now, don’t do that you two! You’ll cause trouble now!” I yelled at them as the trio look at me, the young girl looks at me with surprise.

“Oh hey – I know you; you were that lady that was talking on stage, right?” She asked as I blinked which… I guess would be the best way to describe me I suppose. “I hope you plan to fix the TV soon, Rai – we do need to get it on.” Chikao warned the boy named ‘Rai’ which I guess is the boy with the hat.

Rai nodded. “It’ll be done soon and will get see it live as promise by the thunder gods!” He spoke which I was confused. “As I – Nakahara Rai, the man born from thunders himself and named the Ultimate Electrical Engineer will save the day!” He introduces himself which... he was quite strange and look to be hard to talk to as then I turn my attention to the bear and kid.

The young girl as she look at me with a smile. “So uh, I guess you’re a Ultimate too?” I asked as she nodded. “Yep, you can call me Inoue Sunako – the talent I got is the Ultimate Child Prodigy, great to meet ya big sis!” she introduces herself which the ‘big sis’ part was a bit… nice, I haven’t been call that in a long while…

With that I look at the TV then at Sunako. “So why did you want to punch the TV?” I asked as Sunako which the girl gave a shrug. “Eh – I was bored and I wanted to watch some cartoons so I’m waiting for Thunder man to work on it.” She stated as sitting down which look to see a book case. “Well maybe if I have the time I can play with you.” I promised her which the girl jump out of her seat. “Oh great, I’ll go play outside and wait for you big sis!” She stated as running out the door.

Well… at least she can be kept distracted which I notice Chikao look at me. “Hm – you seem really good with kids, Miss Okamoto.” He told me which I couldn’t help but smile a bit. “Well I do have some experience taking care of kids before, I use to be a babysitter.” I told him which I did have some fond memories.

With that I turn towards the bear, he looks to be dress like us is… he actually a bear. “Soo, you aren’t going to break the TV, are you?” I asked which the bear look at me putting his paws up to his face. “Oh me oh my, I was mostly acting like that towards young lady Sunako – I wouldn’t dare hurt it actually.” He stated as then the bear realize something. “Oh my, I haven’t introduced myself – you can call me Kumasuke!” He began but… I went silent, is that his actual name?

But then ‘Kumasuke’ went silent as well then sighed. “Ah or well, you can call me Katou Doi also known as the Ultimate Mascot at your services.” He spoke in a rather cartoony voice and… his serious, an Ultimate Mascot which I guess could be interesting.

“Wow a mascot, huh? Bet it must get really hot under that thing, huh? Do you even eat at all?” I asked as Doi who was in a thinking pose. “Well I do take this thing off when I’m out of my ‘character’ moments and I usually eat when alone since I don’t want to ruin my costume of course!” He told me which, that’s an interesting fact.

I then turn to where Sunako then at Doi for a bit. “Say – can you keep an eye on that kid a bit longer? I got to introduce myself to the other students.” I asked which Doi nodded. “Of course, ma’am! I’ll watch her over for dear life as your trusty mascot!” He stated as running.

As Doi left, Ryoko came back downstairs with no luggage in hand. “I brought your luggage upstairs.” She told me which I nodded as I look at Chikao who look to be heading to the kitchen which me and Ryoko follow after him.

#Dangan Fangan #Danganronpa Every After 2 #DR: EA2 #dr ea #Fuji Okamoto #Chikao Ishikawa #ryoko hayashi #Kimika Kimura #Tomoe Kimura #Rai Nakahara #Doi Katou #Sunako Inoue

6 notes · View notes

zenonaa · 4 years

Link

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School, Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Fukawa Touko/Togami Byakuya, Naegi Makoto & Togami Byakuya Characters: Togami Byakuya, Naegi Makoto Additional Tags: togafukaweek2020 Series: Part 4 of TogaFuka Week 2020

Summary: Togami enlists Naegi's help to practice what Togami should say to Fukawa when they reunite in Towa City.

Comments: Day 4! This time, it’s one prompt - thanks. However, it can be interpreted as a nightmare for Naegi.

***

The elevator door opened with a groan. Makoto emerged into the corridor, dressed in his work suit at Future Foundation’s main headquarters on a Saturday, as opposed to in his casual clothes playing video games at his apartment with Yasuhiro like he originally planned. Since passing through the main entrance on the ground floor, he had not seen a single person. Not heard a single voice. No one greeted him at the reception desk or galloped up or down the stairs nearby, and he couldn’t hear anything beyond the door that led to the offices on this floor.

Part of healing included rest, and as the world was finally healing now, Future Foundation allowed employees to have weekends off. Yet, despite that and the eerie silence around him, Makoto knew someone else was here, on this very floor, waiting for him.

Makoto exhaled and approached the door to the other offices. He stopped in front of it and extended his hand, but he didn’t open it, hovering his hand next to it. His faint reflection stared back at him from the door’s glass pane. Over the years, Makoto imprinted many faces onto many reflective surfaces. Bright-eyed, optimistic faces. Angry, determined faces. Tired, haunted faces.

The one peering back now was tired, but optimistic.

He looked up, breathed and opened the door.

Wooden caramel panels covered the floor. Either side of Makoto, framed photographs and motivational posters claimed any available space on the white walls. Though he hadn’t been on this floor many times before, most had the same layout. Makoto walked down the corridor until he reached a door with a symbol of someone wearing a dress on it then went inside, where he immediately found himself face-to-face with his colleague, Byakuya Togami.

A fan whirred over their heads, already in action. Same with the lights. The bathroom had been refurbished, more colourful than the understated monochrome schemes on other floors. Both the floor and the ceiling were tiled in white, and the furthest wall from Makoto boasted pastel pink. Sinks stood to his left, each garnished with a rosy bar of soap despite the dispensers above them all, and the dispensers were fixed onto mirrors that took up the entirety of that wall.

Byakuya clicked his tongue. Makoto’s eyes flitted back to him.

“You’re five minutes late,” said Byakuya, arms folded over his chest.

His glare weighed down on Makoto, who tensed and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Sorry, I got here as fast as I could,” replied Makoto, slapping on an apologetic smile. He lowered his hand slowly and squinting slightly, added, “But if we live in the same apartment block, wouldn’t it have been easier to meet at your place instead?”

As opposed to the girls’ bathroom on the eighth floor of Future Foundation’s main building.

“No,” said Byakuya with a small shake of his head. “I don’t want to risk us being overheard, and I know for a fact this bathroom doesn’t have any hidden cameras. Andou made a big deal of it during a meeting, and the memory stuck with me.”

When Byakuya phoned Makoto the night before, he had refused to divulge to Makoto what this sudden meeting was about, only referring to it as ‘important’ and saying that he couldn’t tell anyone else about it. Makoto didn’t disbelieve him, but he hadn’t realised how many precautions Byakuya put in place so their conversation would remain confidential.

The quiver of a smile on Makoto’s lips flatlined. This must have been serious. More serious than Makoto realised.

Byakuya pushed up his glasses. Jutted out his chin.

“As you will know, in a week, we are being flown to Towa City to retrieve two of our friends,” said Byakuya, prompting Makoto to give a nod, and Byakuya wagged a finger. “You are going because one of them is your sister. Now, you must wonder why I am going too. Why I insisted on it.”

Not really. That was what Makoto wanted to say, and what he almost said. Byakuya twitched his finger one more time, then left it pointing vaguely in Makoto’s direction.

“It is because of Fukawa,” said Byakuya. He paused. Stared. Waited.

Makoto felt obligated to respond.

“... Right,” said Makoto, eyeing him. That seemed like a safe answer. He already suspected that to be Byakuya’s reason, but he didn’t know what Byakuya would steer the conversation to from here.

“You see,” Byakuya carried on, and he now clasped his hands together tightly and bobbed them up and down, his index fingers the only digits pointing outward, “when I collect Fukawa, there are a few things I wish to address with her. I want to commend her for her efforts during our separation, as well as the previous period which I failed to acknowledge prior to her departure, and I want to discuss plans for what is to happen next.”

He stopped moving his hands, staring at Makoto intensely.

“Uh... okay?” said Makoto, and he scratched his temple. “Is that what you wanted to tell me?”

A tremor convulsed on Byakuya’s face. His features darkened as he gritted his teeth.

“Don’t get passive aggressive with me. If you don’t wish to assist me, come out and say it. I will remember, though,” warned Byakuya.

Makoto winced and patted the air. “S-Sorry! I mean, I would be glad to help. So what is it you want my help with?”

The cold glint in Byakuya’s eyes lingered as he straightened and adjusted his glasses. He placed one hand onto his hip.

“I will recite what I plan to say to Fukawa, and you will advise me on any amendments I should make,” said Byakuya. “Even though I have become more considerate of people’s feelings, no switch has flicked within me and I may say something too harsh. I also don’t want to say something that Fukawa might misunderstand. You know how her imagination can run wild...”

Once Makoto processed what Byakuya requested from him, a grin broke out across Makoto’s face. Makoto couldn’t imagine Byakuya wanting to practice so as to avoid accidentally hurting someone’s feelings when they first met.

“I would be happy to help you with that,” Makoto said, nodding. “All right, you start.”

Byakuya positioned his fist to his mouth and cleared his throat, then moved his hand away, his expression serious.

“Fukawa, at first, you irritated me and I wished for you to disappear, but over the years, I came to know you better and no longer want that to happen,” said Byakuya.

Makoto frowned. Already, he thought it could do with some work.

However, Makoto didn’t say anything yet, because Byakuya stared into space with the same level of focus one would direct at a person they were talking to, so Makoto thought Byakuya had more to say. Advice could come afterwards, when Byakuya was finished. Byakuya began pacing back and forth, waving one hand about as he spoke.

“As time went by, you seeped into my subconscious. I began to think about you when I had nothing else to think about,” Byakuya revealed. He cupped his chin and slowed his pace, but he didn’t stop walking, his steps turning to shuffling. “Then, I thought about you when I was supposed to be thinking about other things. Even now, my mind still strays to you without my intention. I have come to... acknowledge that you play a significant role in my life.”

Byakuya came to a halt. A beat of silence passed between them. The body language of the two men differed greatly. While Byakuya stood stiffly with his jaw clenched and his lips pressed together, Makoto’s mouth hung ajar. He didn’t know how to respond, but fortunately for him, Byakuya resumed speaking.

“You are an enigma, and now that we are back together, I will keep a close eye on you,” said Byakuya quietly, edging close to a murmur. “I wish to learn more about you. I want you by my side. Thank you.”

The ceiling fan hummed. Rattled faintly. Byakuya turned to Makoto.

“Well? What do you think?” asked Byakuya, his voice returning to its usual volume.

Makoto shifted his weight between his feet.

“Are... Is this a love confession?” blurted Makoto.

Byakuya twitched.

“No! I am thanking her,” Byakuya snapped. “This is nothing like a love confession.”

If his gaze was a knife, it would have cut right through Makoto.

“S-Sorry!” yelped Makoto. He threw his hands up, showing his palms in surrender, and added timidly, “It sounds kind of like one though, Togami-kun.”

“Well, it’s not one,” replied Byakuya with a small jerk of his head. His brow scrunched then relaxed a bit, but not much. In a tight, level voice, he said, “No matter. I have, of course, prepared another speech, in case you found fault in this one.”

Of course he did. Byakuya pulled out a piece of paper from his jacket pocket, skimmed through it, then spoke again.

“Fukawa, we have been through a lot together, haven’t we?” he asked. Neither Makoto nor the room answered. That didn’t deter Byakuya, whose voice spread throughout the bathroom. “When we first met, I thought I had you sussed out, but you have continued to surprise me. I realise you are not just a stuttering girl with a persecution complex, but a stuttering girl with a persecution complex that is brave, intelligent, resourceful, attractive and incredibly loyal. You have proven yourself to be an invaluable asset to me, and with you by my side, we can look to the future together. Thank you.”

Byakuya faced him again.

“Thoughts?” he said calmly.

Makoto braced himself and said hesitantly, “Togami-kun... that also sounded like a love confession.”

“How so?” asked Byakuya, narrowing his eyes.

“How...?” Makoto repeated blankly. He flung up his hands and couldn’t help raise his voice. “All of it, Togami-kun! You even called her ‘attractive’!”

Byakuya’s eyes flashed wider, and he turned his head to one side. “... No, I didn’t.”

If this had been a written story, Makoto could have pointed to the word ‘attractive’ in Byakuya’s recent dialogue, but he couldn’t, so he folded his arms over his chest and hunched his shoulders, pouting.

“I shall now recite my third version,” announced Byakuya, sticking his nose up. Makoto stared.

“T-Third...?” Makoto spluttered.

Either Byakuya ignored Makoto or took this exclamation as a sound of consent. He got out yet another piece of paper from his pocket and unfolded it. Then he glared at Makoto, like he expected Makoto to interrupt, and when Makoto didn’t, Byakuya glanced at it before speaking yet again.

“I have been meaning to confess my feelings to you for a long time now,” said Byakuya, chin held high. “For a long time, I took you for granted, and during your long absence in Towa City, I realised how much I came to not only be used to having you at my disposal but also how much I approved, no, desired your presence.”

By this point, Makoto couldn’t even muster up any emotion to liven his face. He didn’t even wish that the tiles above and below him would splinter, become teeth, and swallow him up. All he did was stand there, motionless.

Meanwhile, Byakuya remained unperturbed. Carried on with his speech, gesturing passionately.

“I remember your dark grey eyes and how they would follow me around the room, how they danced in and out of view behind your glasses so befitting a literary girl.”

The only indication of life from Makoto was how his eyes tracked Byakuya’s movements around the room. It wasn’t that Makoto wasn’t happy for the guy. The opposite was true. Makoto just didn’t know how much more of this he could take. Of Byakuya being so oblivious to something so painfully obvious to Makoto. Byakuya paused from his pacing and gazed up at his elevated hand, palm up and fingers splayed like he was grasping the globe.

“What once unsettled, annoyed me... now gives me reassurance. Security. This is because I know you would be my knight,” said Byakuya. His fingers closed in to create a fist. “Your long, aubergine hair, once tied in braids, now flies wild and unkempt, framing your pale face in a stark contrast between light and dark... You, once a wallflower, now a rose, demanding attention from all those present...”

Byakuya trailed off, standing as still as a statue. Makoto didn’t know if Byakuya was finished yet but dared not ask.

“... I have been able to see your face on video call, but you were intangible,” continued Byakuya. Good call by Makoto. Byakuya spoke barely above a whisper. “But now, if I wanted, I could bring my hands to your hair... comb my fingers through your hair... cradle your cheeks in my hands...”

The guy had it bad.

“Togami-kun,” said Makoto, unable to refrain any longer.

As if the vision of Touko that only Byakuya could see suddenly fractured, freeing him from his trance, Byakuya turned to Makoto sharply. “What?”

“This really sounds like a confession,” said Makoto.

“It’s not!” insisted Byakuya.

Makoto wanted to shake him. Instead, he dragged his fingers down his own face. “You’re talking about combing your fingers through her hair and caressing her face...”

“Theoretically,” said Byakuya.

“What?” asked Makoto, gaping, and Byakuya fidgeted with his glasses.

“I’m saying I theoretically could,” explained Byakuya. He brought a hand to his chin. His gaze drifted upward, clouding in thought. “I could also nudge her glasses into place, or even... touch her... hand...”

Byakuya stroked his thumb against his chin. Makoto laced his fingers together and shook his hands pleadingly at Byakuya.

“Togami-kun, if you have feelings for her, it really is okay,” said Makoto.

In fact, Makoto and the others had spent many conversations trying to decide how best to get Byakuya to confess his feelings because his pining was becoming too much to leave alone. Many times, they all heard Byakuya talk about how he would go personally to Towa City to retrieve Touko. They all heard Byakuya talk about Touko during lunch breaks, sharing facts like how they had both seen the same cult movie before and quoting different parts of her various novels which he had taken up reading. And all of them had heard his sighs, seen him drum his fingers as he stared out of a window and knew who he was thinking about.

Makoto pleaded in his head with Byakuya to confirm what everyone already knew. His inner voice begged. Strained.

Finally, Byakuya’s brow cracked.

“Are you in on this with the others?” asked Byakuya.

That was not what Makoto expected. Makoto tilted his head.

“Others?” he said.

“You are saying what the others said when I came to them for help,” sneered Byakuya. He pointed at Makoto. “Hagakure, Asahina, Kirigiri... They all told me that my speeches sounded like confessions of love.”

Apparently, Byakuya had gone to everyone else before seeking Makoto out. Makoto didn’t know how to feel about that, or if this was a good time to feel anything about that. Byakuya rested his head in his hand.

“I just want to thank Fukawa for the work she has done,” Byakuya told Makoto, the rough edges to his tone softening. “Not just for her role with Towa City and rescuing me. Not even for all the errands she has run for me. In my family, as you know, it’s tradition for the heir to be selected from a pool of siblings. I was a business investment first and foremost. Everyone was my opponent. Anyone could be getting close to me just to try to take me down and replace me.”

A sad twinge puckered in Makoto’s chest. He cocked his head to one side. Though he looked at Byakuya, Byakuya didn’t look back at him, not as Byakuya lowered his hands or as he began talking again.

“The conglomerate was powerful. Rich,” said Byakuya. “It was the elite of the elite. Now it’s just me. And yet... knowing this, Fukawa stayed by my side. Her feelings, her opinion, didn’t waver. She doesn’t see me as a Togami first and foremost, but as Byakuya. Byakuya-sama.”

Makoto’s brow creased, and he lifted a hand, faltering, but he ended up resting his hand on Byakuya’s shoulder. Byakuya continued not looking at him. He didn’t shove Makoto off either.

“I thought I was helping her by teaching her to be more independent, to improve herself, but I didn’t realise until later that she taught me as well,” said Byakuya, his eyes downcast. “She gains power from her emotions, rather than let them drag her down. You and her... both showed me emotions and bonds can give strength. That depending on others doesn’t mean you’re weak. And she... with how she feels for me... how she can draw strength from her love...”

Byakuya’s features hardened, and he switched on the brakes on his verbalised train of thought. Makoto felt him tremble faintly under his hand. His chest gave a sad clench, and he tilted his head to one side. Perhaps they had all been too harsh on Byakuya. Too impatient. What seemed obvious to them was another world for Byakuya, one that Byakuya had for so long been taught was lowly enough for him to grind his heel against.

“Togami-kun, I know you will think this is a copout answer, or complain I’m being too nice, but I don’t think you need to prepare a speech or worry about what you will say to her,” said Makoto. Byakuya didn’t stir, but Makoto wasn’t discouraged. “It’s good that you’re able to articulate your thoughts, and all of us shouldn’t make assumptions about what you’re talking about. I think... it’s one of those times when it’s best to wait until the moment to say what you think is appropriate, but if what you said in your speech is how you feel, then I think... you should tell her that.”

No response from Byakuya. Makoto’s lips curled up at the ends and he waved his hand, keeping his other on his friend’s shoulder.

“If you find out you don’t know what to say, you can always offer her a hug,” Makoto suggested in a light tone. “I’m expecting to have bruises after Komaru’s done hugging me.”

A laugh escaped Makoto, shaky but good-natured. Byakuya finally turned to him, and Makoto felt sure Byakuya was smiling very slightly.

“Yes, I think you’re right,” Byakuya decided quietly. “A hug may suffice. Here. Let me practice on you.”

Before Makoto could understand what was about to happen, Byakuya closed the gap between their bodies and wrapped his arms around Makoto, giving The Most Awkward Hug that Makoto had ever experienced. The hug wasn’t bad, but Makoto’s face was smothered in Byakuya’s chest, and he didn’t sink at all into Byakuya. It was like pressing his face against a window.

After a while, Byakuya stepped back, and Makoto breathed again, head spinning slightly.

Their first hug.

Probably their last too.

Still, Makoto appreciated it. Both of them regarded each other. Makoto broke the ice first.

“I think this sort of thing should also wait until the moment it’s happening,” said Makoto. He adjusted his collar. “But... um... I recommend loosening up a bit when you do it next time.”

“I think so too,” agreed Byakuya. “I’ll keep note of your critique.”

Then, Byakuya added,

“Now that is out of the way, there is one more thing. When I meet with Fukawa again, I wish to give her a present. I don’t want to give her any food, though I know her diet needs attention, so I thought I would give her a piece of jewelry. A ring - ”

Makoto could only handle so much in a day. He threw up his hands and flounced out.

The door nearly smacked into Kanon Nakajima’s face. Byakuya must have scheduled an appointment with her too, but Makoto was too exasperated to dwell on it.

She started, “Is - ?”

“In there,” said Makoto, passing by, and he went home to play video games.

#togafuka #byakuya togami #makoto naegi #dr3 #danganronpa #fanfiction #togafukaweek #one shot

21 notes · View notes