Let's keep this a simple introduction, shall we?
Summary: "Hey. You alright?" Kuga gave a mirthless laugh from behind his fingers. "...She's asking questions." He managed in a tense murmur. Mizunagi gave an expressive eye roll and snuffed his cigarette in the glass ashtray on the table. "So that's it, then? We give up and tell her the truth?" Kuga lowered his hand, face troubled. "That's not an option, you know."
Premise of the story: What happened to Kaoru's group post Mana-eats-your-unhappiness-and-fills-it-with-happy-sunflower-cloaks?
What I plan to do with it: Follow it to its natural end as I see it. It's a great setup, and I finally have down all the minor characters enough to work with them. (Yes!) It should be pretty straightforward, and only as complicated or simple as I make it. Nice little idea... I just need to figure out how long after the canon I want to set it and I'm about set. (Flippin' Sweet!) But that tells all you just about nothing about what I'm going to do with this...which...well...is as it should be? (And here, I get pwnzor'd by irate fans for my roundabout nature...)
Hey! ...What? It's unusual I give out a fragment of a whole fic without knowing where it's going, but I've done so this time! I really can't give that much away. I hate to put readers on a "your life and death depends on my creativity" sort of noose, but what can I say? If I decide not to continue it, then I'll probably ask anyone and everyone who wishes to "fill it in" to continue it however they like and post it on-site as their story. (And so the fandom will be filled with all sorts of beautifully different takes on what happened! How wonderful! My evil plan to save the world will have root!) Sound good? So...um...any of you who like this sort of thing, start thinking what you'd do with it. It might turn out just to be a spectacular little prompt. Or...who knows...maybe a roleplay or something interesting. (Or just different.) All I know is it's about time I did something to rev up the creative juices in this place, and this fit the bill. It's summer. I'm heat-touched. I live in Miami Florida. I'm allowed to be crazy in the heat. (There's lots of heat down here. And humidity too. Grow epiphytes for fun, that kind of stuff... Fly through the air like the Black Orchid... Play in the street. Get hit by cars. Make Mashed Potatoes. All that jazz in a palm-tree-and-hurricane-rich environment..)
Anyway, I wanted to do something that turned out entirely differently than all those convoluted things I write otherwise. I wanted to remake my fanon universe a few times over just to shake the borders of reality. I wanted a chance to take things a completely different way, and get my brain into a completely different "translation" of my initial take, which with I've worked these past...oh dear...is it really five years?
The best way I can describe this sudden fit of whimsy is with a quote:
"I am following my fish." -Delirium of the Endless
Clearly, this is me being wild and unusual and carefree. And following my fish. (Heavens have mercy on us if all of you went around swimming through the ocean whenever the fancy hit you...)
No complaining, y'hear. (Unless you want to get after me for shoddy updating schedules of other fics, in which case, you're allowed.)
Don't you see? You too must follow the singing fishes. (grin) ...Or be covered all over with invisible bugses forever and ever.
(PS: Virtual cake to those who know my semi-literary references. And this cake is not a lie, yo.)
Reasons this fic is rated T: Alright, so it's not quite as bad as usual, just whenever I have an implied pair of men together and doing bad things, I like to bump up the rating just in case. Nothing graphic, just a reference. S'n M habits at that. Perhaps even less language than usual. Pretty tame if you're used to me. But just in case you're not... (I am an entry drug! Oh drama!)
Heavens above, why do I feel like this would be a really great shoujo manga? Like...one of those 16+ fantasydrama thingies I always make fun of? (Not that there's much I don't make fun of--myself most of all...) Ah how the circle comes around to bite you in the six... (This being just another of the convoluted cliche-rewrites I have to offer in real life as I express all the earmarks of being an eccentric young gentleman while in fact being a straight woman. I blame this on being born in the year of the snake: if men hug me, I transform into a certain creature offering forbidden apples--God's truth!)
Actually...virtual cake might be a little low of an incentive considering all my semi-literary references...
Virtual cake with the young man (or woman!) of your choice chained within it, quivering, and covered in some sort of desert topping, for guessing my references. (Another way for you to amuse yourselves in reviews. Oh, the competition!)
Or if your tastes are more like mine, a nice, fine geek man with bulging muscles between thumb and forefinger from skilled Halo or Super Smash Bros. playing, in your living room, with a pile of nachos, V8, Mountain Dew, and possibly some creepy crawly bottom-dwelling marine "bugs" cooked to perfection. (I'd enter a contest for that. Hot damn... I sit in my room and write fanfiction all day, and wonder why I'm still single for nineteen years...)
Because I still refuse to disclaim, and so support Desert.Illusion--whatever may have struck her--I rain random quotes:
"Halp! Creative juices are corrosive!"-Foolish Mortal
-o-O-o-O-o-
Tabula Rasa
1. (In Philosophy) the mind prior to experiences:
the mind at birth, regarded as having no innate conceptions
2. Chance to start afresh: an opportunity to make a clean break or a fresh start
(Mid-16th century from the Latin
meaning literally "scraped table" or "blank slate")
-o-O-o-O-o-
- I: Pater-
-o-O-o-
Kuga put his hand over his eyes, leaning against the door. It shut with a dull click behind him.
Mizunagi frowned from the table. "Hey. You alright?" Kuga gave a mirthless laugh from behind his fingers. "...She's asking questions." He managed in a tense murmur.
Mizunagi gave an expressive eye roll and snuffed his cigarette in the glass ashtray on the table. "...So that's it, then? We give up and tell her the truth?" Kuga lowered his hand, face troubled. "That's not an option, you know." He murmured. Mizunagi snorted, giving his strange smile, the one that never reached his eyes. "Well. Not for you." He drew up his legs, standing and tapping another cigarette from the case in his back pocket. "You can't keep her in the dark forever. She's a woman."
"She's a girl." Kuga whispered painfully, his face flinching. Mizunagi's smile crept wider, catlike. "Mm, I know. It's fun to go out and have people point out the lovely father and daughter pair, I'll bet." Kuga's face gave a transparently guilty twitch. Mizunagi, ever the cool customer, gave no evidence of noticing. "Rough for you." He added with perfect nonchalance, "She's your little girl. But...she's not so little anymore now is she? Don't you think it's time she-?" Kuga cut him off. "Mizunagi!" Kasei stood in the staircase, and Ama-Inu was sullenly chewing a stalk of celery, knees up to his chin, sitting on the same stairs as though folded in on himself. Mizunagi paused at the crunch of Ama-Inu's snack.
Kasei's face was blank, even unmasked. His fair hair had grown slightly, and his Arayshiki house tattoo capped his shoulder in wary black velvet. "Trouble?" Kasei asked flatly. Mizunagi shrugged, his mild, dangerous, insincere smile ever present. "Master's asking Kuga questions. Nothing more." His eyes glittered and flicked to Kasei with almost an inclination of his head. "Nothing less." He knew the tattoo only really showed when Kasei was prepared to use his powers, as a typical Arayashiki's mark always did. It was a goad, but also a visible mark of mutual restlessness. How long had it been since any of them had killed someone? They were all restless, all on edge...
Ama-Inu gave another crunch from the foot of the stairs. "So?" he grumbled. He gave an audible gulp of vegetable, leaves sticking out of his mouth like forlorn, drowning arms. His face still looked craggy and blunt as ever, and if his hair had grown, it had only grown upwards--not that a seven-foot-tall demon needed any height benefits due to hairstyle. Only hints of light would show a hollow ruby tone to his eyes--unusual, but...not much of a problem considering how absurd the idea was that anyone could really match height enough to see eye to eye with Ama-Inu. He had no apparent pupil or iris except for the faint edge one could see up close, which revealed an oddly clear, almond-shaped point in the middle of either liquid ruby eye. Currently, both of his unusual eyes looked normal and simply dark in the faint light. The eyes and the height aside, Ama-Inu seemed human. He wasn't, of course, but he was good at seeming it. Moreso than some of the humans in the room, that was.
"We alrea'y knew it was comin'." the demon grumbled.
Kasei nodded, padding soundlessly from the stairs, and swiping the cigarette from Mizunagi's mouth, lit it, undaunted. Kuga tensed, watching the psychic. But Mizunagi only shook his head, bemusedly, and palmed another from the packet in his back pocket. Kasei held the smoking cylinder with easy grace and elegance. His tongue flickered against his lip for a moment as he gazed out one of the tiny little windows. He finally added in his quiet voice, "Since there's no cause to pretend I didn't hear...What sort of questions has she asked? There's no cause to run about in panic needlessly." Mizunagi nodded faintly, still bemused. "Right." Ama-Inu grinned, a fang hanging out of the corner of his lip. "'Course he's right." Kasei's truly black eyes turned in their sockets. "Shh...Don't howl, puppy." He whispered, putting a finger to his lips. Nonetheless his lips curled upwards slightly at the edges, and he eased the cigarette between them. He blinked, and the movement sent stray tendrils of blond hair quivering. Ama-Inu glowered and gnawed the rest of his celery, munching and crossing his arms.
Mizunagi smirked, the dark opposite of pale Kasei, minus his thin scarf, and the sword tied over the shoulder. "You nervous, Kasei?" He teased. He knew perfectly well how Kasei felt, but reading Kasei was like reading a model's face. He was all posture, all pose, revealing nothing. Kasei looked at him and shrugged, easily, fitting the cigarette barely between his lips. His eyes betrayed no more than Mizunagi's did. Nonetheless, the psychic smiled. He knew.
"'Course he's nervous--doesn't smoke when he isn't." Ama-Inu grumbled. "You're moaning, puppy." Kasei replied quietly, with the air of one commenting on the atmosphere. Ama-Inu's face stretched in a terrible, fanged grin, as though goading him. "Mizunagi has no need to know the private habits of his housemates." The Arayashiki added, finally taking a lengthy drag of smoke, and letting it out in a cloudy wreath about his head. Mizunagi smirked at Ama-Inu. "No. Really. I'm sure you're both very fascinating people, but I don't need to know that. It's like your toothbrush color to me." Ama-Inu frowned as though reconciling the idea of a toothbrush in his head. "We have more important things to know." Kasei murmured, black eyes sliding to Kuga.
Kuga threaded his hands through his hair unhappily. "She...Master asked me if I were really her father." he said quietly, though nonetheless finally, as though bringing them back onto topic.
Mizunagi snorted, breathing smoke through his nostrils. "That's a definite wrench right there. Should we say it's really Kasei?" Kasei shot him a bland look, voice still perfectly level, toneless. "Such a thing would only increase Master's suspicions, as you surely know." Ama-Inu glowered at him. "An' I'm not master's momma. So shut yor face 'fore I smash it." Mizunagi raised his palms. "I don't have the faintest idea where you got that idea from. I wasn't going to say a word. And maybe I feel especially motherly lately-" Kasei cut him off with a quiet noise that could have been a single, muffled laugh or a cough in the throat. Ama-Inu peered at him, as though not sure what he'd just heard. Mizunagi however, said nothing, only smirked to himself, triumpahantly. The demon's face arranged itself into a frown and he glowered at Mizunagi. "Stupi' E.G.O." He muttered. Mizunagi pretended he didn't hear.
Kuga's eyebrows pinched, and he massaged the bridge of his nose. "I...didn't answer her, but she's certain to be persistant. And we couldn't possibly do something like that. She already knows..." He trailed off. Kasei lightly raised his eyebrows. "Knows?" Ama-Inu scowled. "What? That me an' Kasei-?" Kasei raised his voice over him, warningly. "Quiet, puppy."
Mizunagi gave him a look of bemusement, his tone light. "Well, it doesn't surprise me that she knows about the odd couple. She is still our master. The bonds are still there, she just doesn't know how to use them, thanks to Kirihara." The other mindbreaker's name made them all tense. The tattoo flickered on Kasei's shoulder. Ama-Inu shifted with a shuffling motion, as though far too large for the space he was in, and grumbled under his breath, "Could be she knows just 'cause he's loud. He's a sadist in bed-" He yelped as a cigarette few across the room and struck him in the hand with its embering end. Kasei had twisted himself about sharply, "You're asking for a newspaper to the nose, puppy." Frost lingered in his voice. "Don't bother. He'd probably like it too much." Mizunagi added in, grinning, eyes slitting in unusual humor. Kuga frowned. "This is serious, you understand." He said quietly.
"We know that." Mizunagi replied. Kasei gave a slight dip of his head in an agreeing nod. Ama-Inu rumbled a "Yeah, s'right." from the staircase, still rubbing at his hand.
"We're serious. Aren't we always? We, who beat a man for looking at her twice-" Mizunagi said lightly, still smiling coldly.
"Castrate him for a disrespectful word-" Kasei added quietly, cradling his cigarette almost dreamily.
"Make him eat his own guts for touchin' her-!" Ama-Inu added after, with a feral gleam of delight to his eyes.
"We're very serious men." Mizunagi finished, looking overall very pleased, though there was no humor in his glittering beetle-black eyes. "She is our master. Our only master." The psychic inclined his head. "Don't be so absorbed, Kuga. We have our bonds to her as well. As strong as yours." Ama-Inu raised a massive fist and pounded the stair in agreement. "Yeah! Stronger!" he added with an air of boasting and a brazen snigger. Kuga said nothing, only frowned at the demon uneasily.
He finally looked at them all wearily, fingers to a temple. "...You guys have any suggestions of what to do about it, then?" Kuga asked quietly, the agitated twist to his eyebrows becoming more pronounced. "I...don't know if I can lie to her and say I'm her father any longer..." His tone was reasonable, but the strain was etched in every line of his body and face. Mizunagi gave a sneering smile. "This isn't the first time I've said your little girl is growing up..."
Kasei fiddled idly with a lock of his pale hair, ignoring Mizunagi. "Is there any possibility of locating Kirihara again and resealing master? That seems a valid question."
Quiet resulted in which Kuga's face pinched instantly.
Ama-Inu frowned at the excorcist. "...Whazzat look for?" Mizunagi glanced at Kuga with his cold black eyes. "Mn. Kasei's direct as ever. Still...I'd say he's right. A reasealing would buy you the time. It's worth a look." Ama-Inu scowled blackly from his scrunched-up position on the stairs. "How? We've lost the birdie. You wanna go look, Mizunagi? Her people aren't useless anymore. An' she's got an Eraser." Kasei idly picked ash off his fingers. "No. They aren't...useless." He murmured. Something had tightened in his voice.
Mizunagi's lips curled. "Had a run in, have we? Maybe, since you suggested it, you'd like to make contact and ask?" He offered. His eyes were hard as flint. "You could see that boy again. The one you let beat you. Maybe he'd do it for you again." Kasei's back went rigid, and his eyes became pits of hard fire through the curtain of his hair, his voice low and lethal when he spoke, "...He isn't my type." Kuga sighed. "That is the other half of the issue."
Mizunagi and Kasei turned their eyes to him, and Mizunagi even blinked, his smile dropping for a moment. Ama-Inu stared. "...Kasei's type?" The demon ventured finally. Mizunagi snorted, not even bothering to hide his amusement. Kasei simply shut his eyes. Kuga put a hand over his sinuses, clearing his throat, embarassed. "Erm. No. I meant...Kaoru...doesn't always seem to view us as...four..."
Mizunagi's smile was rigid, and Kasei's brows pinched. Ama-Inu just crunched vegetation, the leafy arms disappearing into his fanged mouth. He seemed comfortably busy in thought--possibly speculating on Kasei's type.
"...Are you suggesting that she thinks Lafayel is still alive?" Kasei asked in a soft voice that bore a hint of steel. Ama-Inu gave an uneasy look, drawn from his thoughts. He growled through his mouthful,"The bird's been gone for ages. He's gotta be dead or she'd 'a called him back...right?" Mizunagi gave a half-shrug, though his eyes were flickering, as though reading his own memories. "My you're getting rather theoretical there. But...even you guys probably knew Lafayel didn't always act the way he was supposed to, and he resisted, if you remember." Kasei's eyebrows knotted. "I don't." He said flatly. "Yeah well you didn't know him as well as I did, now did you?" Mizunagi replied almost sweetly. Kasei's eyes narrowed slightly.
Ama-Inu wrinkled his nose, jumping to conclusions first. "...Thought you said you liked girls-" Kasei sighed and reached over to lightly tug a tuft of Ama-Inu's matted hair. "You beg from the wrong hand, puppy." Ama-Inu quieted, and Mizunagi's black eyes glittered amusement. "I do like girls. Besides, Lafayel was taken, didn't you know?" Ama-Inu started with a bellow, "WHA? THAT BRAT-?" Kasei locked an elbow beneath his jaw, quieting him. "Quiet, puppy, you'll howl down the bitch." Kuga's face twisted, but he said nothing to correct Kasei's language.
The former exorcist looked at Mizunagi blankly. "Is that...why he fought so?" He ventured. One could always trust Kuga to try to be broad minded, though even his face was showing a bit of strain trying to reconcile the idea of skinny, scantily clad, dark-winged Lafayel having a lover. Mizunagi shrugged congenially. "Could be. Actually, I don't exactly have proof of the "taken" thing. He has that sort of air around him, like he's either entirely more selfish than you think he is, or he has someone else to fight against Master for. He just sort of gives off a "taken" sort of air. Makes you wonder what she looked like..."
Ama-Inu spluttered a choked laugh. "She. Didja hear, Kasei? He said sh-" He gagged midway through the line as Kasei's arm tightened its hold. Kasei put his chin down in Ama-Inu's filthy hair. "I thought I trained you better, puppy." He whispered with a frightening grin. "I thought we were past the choke collar." Ama-Inu made a gurgling noise. Kuga looked at him worriedly, but the demon shot both Mizunagi and Kuga a crooked grin.
Mizunagi's lips quirked at the corners. Kuga still looked worried, but he turned away, reluctantly, ears still pricked for the sound of the frighteningly tall demon passing out from lack of oxygen. Kasei's dark eyes were slits of amusement. "Pay no attention to this howling dog, he enjoys being difficult." the slender blonde added nonchalantly. "You say Lafayel may be alive, though? Potentially?" He added in a tone that seemed more polite than inquiring. Mizunagi shrugged. "As I said, it's pretty theoretical. Being a psychic doesn't tell you everything. Theoretically, if master didn't remember, she might not know how to call him back. And Lafayel being who he was, I don't think he'd need a push to run off on his own."
Kuga frowned. "If this is so...Lafayel may very well be alive." Relief flooded his face, smoothing his worried features. "I'm glad..." Ama-Inu made a strained noise, and Kasei finally let him go. The demon gasped for breath, color rushing into his face. Running a finger along a flattened lock of hair just behind the demon's ear, Kasei sat, eyes glittering and watching. "Glad? Strange... It...complicates matters..." Kasei murmured almost absently. Kuga turned, amazed. "What? What do you mean by that, Kasei? Why?"
Kasei raised his head slightly, face perfectly bland, blank, calm. "If Lafayel lives, it provides incentive to allow Master to remember. She would call him back. That's all I implied." Mizunagi nodded idly, smirking around his cigarette. "Erasers are powerful." he added in. Kuga's face betrayed his distress at the thought. Kasei's lips parted in an eerie smile. "Put your tongue back in, puppy." He murmured behind him, not even turning his head. Ama-Inu grumbled up at him, face still rather blue. "What. A guy's not allowed to pant?" Kasei's grin widened--meaningless as a model's--and he rubbed harder behind Ama-Inu's ears, the demon slumped over, still catching his breath. "Nice to be...five again..." Ama-Inu muttered.
Mizunagi suddenly smirked. "You know Kuga doesn't like hearing that." Kasei's smile flattened back into nothingness. "One doesn't always receive the world on a platter as he wishes." He replied blithely. Ama-Inu whispered hoarsely, "Weirdo likes little girls..." Kasei administered a sharp blow with his fingers to Ama-Inu's nose. The demon howled, and grabbed his face. Kasei raised his face. "Not that." He clarified almost sweetly, murmuring into Ama-Inu's ear. "Kuga's clearly benefitted the most from this façade. The regaining of master's memories could prove...a complicating factor for him."
Kuga's face twisted and he looked down. Ama-Inu's head lifted, and he studied Kuga. "Well sure he has..." He rumbled. Something like sympathy came into his face. "Treatin' her like his little girl. He won't get to if she-" Kasei grabbed him by the face, quieting him. "Clearly, puppy, clearly." He replied with near-lightness. His black eyes flicked to Kuga. "And I'd suggest a different tactic in this event. We don't need her to regain her memories to my knowledge, just as we do not necessarily need them repressed. ...Mizunagi?"
Mizunagi shrugged, lips still formed in a smile. "If you let your pet speak he'd get a vote in on this. He misses the blood, I'd bet." Ama-Inu peeled down the hand over the lower half of his face. "Yeah." He assented, looking back at Kasei cautiously. Kasei's expression became frosty insofar as one could tell when nothing really changed from one expression to another. It was more his body language, though even that was rather minimal. Ama-Inu's voice rose defiantly. "I miss it. Nothin' like a good straight out fight." Kasei's lips curled in distaste. "You get that every night, puppy." he said in a very low, dangerous voice, though perhaps there was what passed for a teasing edge to it with Kasei. Judging by how Ama-Inu blinked, and scratched his head, he hadn't thought of that. "Huh. Yeah. I guess. But I can't kill you." Mizunagi grinned and this time it hit his eyes. "Heh. True love, right there, Kasei." Kasei glared at him. "Shut it." He said tersely. Kuga only looked away, saying nothing.
Ama-Inu looked sheepishly at Mizunagi and Kuga. "S' a dog thing..." He muttered with a laborious shrug against teh leaning weight of Kasei. "Y'don't bite your master, y'know?" Kuga's eyebrows knotted. "She is our master. Kaoru." His mouth pinched and he suddenly looked at Mizunagi. "Lafayel disappeared-" Mizunagi nodded cordially. "You mentioned that." Kuga wasn't amused. "Is there anything in your experience-?" Mizunagi interrupted him. "No need to become angry with me, Kuga. And I've already answered that before. I owe you nothing. And as far as I know, Lafayel had no talent for teleportation. His powers were different from mine. Even if the rumors on the ancestry of the E.G.O. are true, his powers and mine are quite different. I've said it all before."
Kuga fumed for a moment, then seemed to deflate, and sighed. "...Yes. Excuse me. But...if there were a way to get Lafayel to return--if he lives--without...encouraging the return of those...painful times-"
"And you think that would be possible?" Kasei asked quietly. Kuga didn't answer. Kasei raised his head ever so slightly, eyes fixed on Kuga's face. "I can't come up with a single scenario given that you seem to believe she'd regret the loss of Lafayel. Assuming you are right, it bears risk as a triggering incident, don't you agree?" Ama-Inu fingered his own throat nervously. "Might be worth it, though. 'Erasers are powerful.' ...Right?" He looked at Mizunagi, then looked down, almost embarassed. "I mean...if she gets 'em back anyway...Good to be prepared, right?"
Kasei's chin raised, and his hand returned to stroking the flattened hair behind his ear. Ama-Inu's eyes shut in apparent bliss, a crooked grin on his face. Mizunagi shrugged, looking at Kuga. "Lafayel as insurance..." he shrugged again. "It's worth a shot. And at least it'd be some fun to see what he's up to. Like old times... You start to miss a shrew like him after a while."
Kuga's mouth thinned. "You've thought he was alive before this...didn't you?" He asked quietly. Mizunagi raised his eyebrows, and snorted. "Who? Me? You think I had some magical insight into all this by my psychic powers?" He smirked. "I just know Lafayel." Kasei gazed at him placidly. "Master...has no powers to draw a reluctant Lafayel back with." Kasei pointed out. Mizunagi smirked like a man holding an ace. "Oh don't worry. He's not the sort to sit back and die. Not in a world Israfel-kun is in."
Kasei frowned. "Israfel..." He repeated. His eyes seemed to disfocus for a moment in thought, then he tugged a lock of Ama-Inu's hair. "Puppy?" He murmured in an undertone. Ama-Inu frowned, confused. "I dunno. Why you pullin' on me? I dunno an Issyfel. Think I know ev'ry angel in all a' damn Tokyo just 'cause I'm a demon?" He glowered muttering. "Like sayin' you're a monk just 'cause you're an Ara-" Kasei gave a tug without even sparing a glance downwards and Ama-Inu's muttering was cut off in a yelp.
Mizunagi's smile didn't reach his eyes. "You don't remember?" He turned to the eraser-look-alike nearby. "Oh come on Kuga, he impaled himself on your sword." Kuga frowned then his brown eyes widened. "...That?" Kasei's eyebrows lifted. "The impaling incident was due to master's will." He reminded flatly. "And it happened to Lafayel and Lafayel alone, to my knowledge." Ama-Inu snickered, "An' y'make it sound perverted like that." he added. Kasei gave the faintest long-suffering sort of sigh, and slammed an elbow down on Ama-Inu's head. The demon yelped again.
"I know, I know." Mizuangi said cheerfully. "Her will. Just like it was her will I sit there bandaging up the stupid sucker again. No, I'm talking about his crispy-fried self before that." Kuga frowned. "He...did have a great many bandages..." Mizuangi grinned. "There we go. None of you stopped to wonder what did that to him?"
The others were silent for a long moment.
Kasei nodded faintly. "I see. Israfel. The other eraser, I presume? The one who looked like a woman?"
Mizunagi's eyes suddenly betrayed amusement as well, and he laughed. "Oh yes, the one in Kirihara's group, to be exact. But I'm reasonably sure he was a man. Boy's uniform at the school when he did it."-Kasei's nose wrinkled at this-"Lafayel was just itching to kill him after that, though." Kuga frowned, "I remember..." he murmured gravely. Ama-Inu nodded jerkily. "Good fight, two erasers... Fun." Kasei tilted his head. "I seem to remember being cut off in my hunting of another of my faction by you, stating that you wanted Lafayel there for destroying the other eraser...It didn't occur to me you could have such a devious reason behind it." Mizuangi shrugged, smirking around his stub of cigarette. "I'm a practical man." he said simply. "And I know you hate those limp-wristed effeminate sorts." Kasei's lips narrowed and he said nothing for a long moment.
"...In such a battle, of course, assuming this Israfel caused Lafayel his state of pain, there would be little chance Lafayel would not be further injured..." Kasei added quietly, his eyes slitting. Mizunagi sighed, snuffing his stub of nicotine. "Nah. The reason Lafayel got fried was because he was busy fighting with your boyfriend's little Darklore buddy, and Israfel popped open the wings and knocked him one under the belt, so to speak." Ama-Inu reared with a bellow causing Kuga to jump. Fists the size of the other men's heads rose up in indignation.
"That bastard! Two against one like that's just cheap! An' he's so small-" Kasei blinked only once before his lips curled humorlessly, and he leaned comfortably over Ama-Inu. "I never knew you were so fond of Lafayel." Mizunagi smiled nastily. "Must be a demon thing." Ama-Inu's face blanched, then he lowered defensively. "'M not fond of him. I don' even like him. Stupid bird. 'S just cheap, tha'ss all." He sulked against his knees. "Don' like him at all...'M hungry." He grumbled as an afterthought. Kasei raised his head. "Kuga?" Kuga obediently went to the refrigerator to prepare something for Ama-Inu. "An' none'a that tofu stuff." Ama-Inu added, muffled by his knees. "Certainly." Kuga replied with utter graciousness.
Quiet reigned a moment but for the mild clatter of pans as Kuga cleared a space to work, tying back his long hair.
"'S not fair." Ama-Inu grumbled after a moment into his knees. "Didn' hafta be beaten. Didn' hafta lose. S'just cheap. We could'a beaten them all if master-" Kasei yanked the tuft of hair behind his ear hard, and Ama-Inu grimaced. He didn't make a sound that time. He knew that one was more than simply play, and when all was said and done, he had a decent enough pain tolerance. That had been a warning, a real one.
Mizuangi grinned. "Careful." He added maliciously. "Your monk boy-toy doesn't want the bitch to bite you, puppy." Ama-Inu snapped his head upwards, muscles cording in his arms. "Don't call me that." He growled. "Only Kasei can call me that." Mizunagi shrugged. "Or what? You'll kill me, puppy?" Kasei cut over Ama-Inu before the demon could retort something very loud. His soft volume hadn't changed a whit. "Without being conscious of her powers, master may have inadvertantly lightened the restrictions between us. Including killing of fellow soldiers." He curled an arm over Ama-Inu's massive shoulders as though to calm him and at once hold him back, though he seemed no more conscious of the act than of brushing away a fly. "There's no need to rile him up, Mizunagi." Kuga added from the stove. "If you guys fight now, we'll only have to explain it to Master later...Things will only get harder for us." Kasei nodded wordlessly in agreement. Ama-Inu glowered, but let his arms be coaxed down.
"...Stupid psychic." He grumbled under his breath.
Mizunagi's lips curled nastily. "Oh that's a bad dog. Heel." Ama-Inu's eyes bulged and he made to leap at the psychic, but Kasei grabbed him by the shirt and flung him over onto the stairs wih no real show of effort.
Kuga jumped at the thunderous crash behind him, turning with eyes wide. "K-Kasei!"
Kasei only looked at him coldly. Ama-Inu didn't make a noise, either in pain or injustice. Kuga was the first to look away, apparently embarassed. It was only then that Kasei turned to Mizunagi. The Arayashiki's black eyes were narrow. "Don't taunt him, Mizunagi." he said flatly, lightly as ever, though there was steel threat under his neutral tone. "He shouldn't overexert himself when he spends every night howling." Ama-Inu gave a strange, hoarse guffaw from his sprawled position over the stairs. He gingerly shifted himself, no doubt battered, but fortunately not broken. "That hurt, you bastard." he whispered at Kasei, unable to hide his fanged grin, licking the blood from his lip, and rubbing carefully at his bruised nose. Kasei gave him a faint nod. Acknowleging, nothing more. He didn't help him up. Ama-Inu said nothing more of the pain, or the mild injuries, and didn't seem to notice the lack of aid.
Mizunagi smiled down coldly, insincerely over both of them. "Well, they do say dog spit has healing properties..." He began. Kasei's voice cut over him, colder still. "Mizunagi, if you don't wish me to do something, you'll stop provoking him." He fixed him with a cold black eye. "Now." He added quietly.
Mizunagi didn't say anything more, fingering another cigarette thoughtfully, smiling. "...Kuga, you want me to bring down master? It looks like you're almost done." The psychich asked in apparent amusement. Kuga turned from the stove. "I'd like you to leave for a moment, yes." He said quietly, sad disapproval in his eyes.
Mizuangi smiled and nodded once, almost bowing, mocking in his eyes. "Fine. I'll get her." he said simply, lightly, coldly playful to the end. He tread lightly around Ama-Inu and Kasei, and ascended the stairs without ever a break in the smile that didn't reach past his lips.
-o-O-o-O-o-
-o-O-o-
Author's Notes:
I was going to have this be a part of one of the Control, or Gracious Wings side-story things, then I decided to make it different entirely. I still don't know exactly where I'm going with it. Half of it seems built off "Gluttony" considering the totally random KaseiXAma-Inu pairing vaguely within it, but other parts, including the weird probable-lesbian Kaoru (Nice to get that out in the open before this continues so you all know in advance), angsty-fatherly Kuga, and cruel-playful Mizuangi seem to have come off of some GW scenes I was writing for later. As I said, I don't know where it's going to go, but I like how it's turning out...though the psychic hunters tend to become a bit...altered under my pen. (That and my general "tone" for anything normal mixes the frightfully serious with the frivolously dark-humored. "Melodrama for the sake of laughing at it after" sort of thing.)
Anyway, let me know what you thought of this, mmkay? Might be an incentive to continue it, or devote brainspace to it...
Oh, and read chapter two. I have two chapters up so far, that's right. Let me know, though, all the same.
...Below, I've taken a section out of my "production notes" so if this dies, people know all my "background stuff" and can jump in more easily. (And even if this doesn't die...they can go ahead and use it as a springboard... oh the FUN!) I don't normally give people my "production notes" because they're often not easily explained. I mean...I'm writing notes to myself so I see and remember my ideas and reactions at the time, when I go through edits. Usually there's nothing really "salvageable" there, but this seems to be the exception because even I don't know if I'm going to finish this one, so...
Hope my tongue-in-cheek personal stuff amuses you. I haven't really cut anything out of it, I think... Reading it over, I guess I'm scattered by myself, and maybe not all the references will make sense, but...it might give some information, so I'm including it in all its strange reference-ridden, sardonic and self deprecating glory AT THE LINK BELOW ON MY LIVEJOURNAL.
If you can't get into livejournal and yearn to discover what is written, send me some sort of note, and I can email it to you, or whatever. Take out the spaces for the link. And if you want ot hang around a bit longer, I dont' care one way or the other. I keep the thing almost entirely public for a reason after all, though it's not often nearly so interesting...
-o- OTHER NOTES FOR FUN (From my personal annotations--the once-in-a-lifetime look into the author's headspace!) -o-
Just finished looking over the first two chapters of Tabula Rasa... (that's the name for the Kaoru-stuff as of this minute. I think it works... "blank slate" and all. Oh the puns!)
My version of Kasei is especially weird. His voice here sounds more playful than the flat, matter-of-fact tone I have him saying it in, in my head... Flatten it all out and have him sort of murmur it, and there's my version of Kasei. Otherwise he sounds as nastily playful as Mizunagi, and that's not right at all. He doesn't really get a great deal of lines. The best you see of him is where he fights Itsuki in book four, and there's sort of a hint of something in his voice for once... That's basically all I've had to work on while redesigning and fleshing him out... Ugh. What a pain. I'm going to try to soften that a touch in the end. it shouldn't be too hard. And some of the vocab seems switchy still... But easily fixable stuff. Final draft, maybe... It still doesn't sound quite right. He's hard to fix, too. What a pain...
I also made him gay, which should be obvious to any reader. But hey, this is fanfictionDOTnet! Just about every character's gay here in someone's mind. I've only got two here. I'm allowed. One gay pairing? That's practically tame compared to some of that other stuff... And Ama-Inu's not really gay like Kasei is. He's more a gastrophile, really, still, but he's kind of ambiguous and apathetic about that sort of thing, so he goes along with it. Just like Gluttony. Or...will that not come through? Ugh. One bad note about the pairing is all the second-guessing. First time I actually take a serious liking to a crack-pairing and I have to be the pioneer? Teh suck. Stupid canon. I have about nothing to work with. Kasei's personality could be just about anything, realistically speaking... Basically I decided Kasei and Ama-Inu are almost the same here as they are in Gluttony, just actually getting along, and I changed Ama-Inu's eyes. That was more recent. (Gerbils. Who would have thought I'd get such a break from gerbils? I'd better not mention that in the end--it's probably too embarassing...)
Ama-Inu...well...he's about the same as he is in the canon except slightly more slurred when I write him. It seemed to work as his voice, even though I feel a little guilty. (And it's hard ot keep consistant. It seems to change as he eats different things. Weirdness.) For the first and last time, though, I must reassure myself that Ama-Inu is not Loz. I love Loz and all, but it really doesn't work. You don't catch Ama-Inu sobbing about his mom and beating up leather-clad girls with massive cleavage that would crush them flat if gravity weren't suspended in the universe for the making of the film... Why do I still keep wanting to stick him next to Yazoo and Kadaj though? This is all MOG's fault... Better not tell her or I'll get a crossover fic blamed on me again and she'll probably impregnate someone. --unwanted mental images much? Note to self: stop watching mindless action movies like Advent Children, and read more books in the future. Stay inside. Be more introverted. Be a slob. Make omlettes. Oh crap, why can't I think about omlettes without thinking "Hamlet"? Note to self again: write down more quotes from Foolish Mortal and give her a hug out of nowhere for being such a terrible influence.
"Ama-Inu" means "sea dog" apparently, hence "puppy." (Thank YOU KS-sama for looking up japanese stuff for the incompetants here...) Uh huh. Now I get to try to tell the world how this is not me stealing off the wonderful "werewolf" story theme running around. Ama-Inu's normal "human" except he's demon with me. Somehow this is invariably going to lead to "werewolf?" from a reviewer. I can feel it in my water. ...More power to the werewolf writers, though. I can't wait for that next chapter to come out on the Ama-Inu centered fic... (I might have to investigate that idea someday...) The Kasei thing might count as a "plot twist which may save my sorry posterior from similarity comments" since how many people really want to take the credit for such a crazy idea? Not many. ...KaseiXAma-Inu...YAY. I wanted to do more with that random pairing and now I get the chance! Reminds me...I ought to tell Fyredra and maybe get up that Good Omens fic while I'm at it. Dual-weilding the "fangirl mode" should be a feat in fourth edition Dungeons and Dragons...
I'm fortunately, still not a particularly graphic person, so the world is probably not going to have to deal with anything distasteful and filled with bad euphemisms for portions of the body and what goes where. It's a breath of relief to reach my nineteeth birthday and still not be a smut-breather. Yay Kasei and Ama-Inu for keeping me sane... (Who wants kinky demon slash anyway? And the height thing would be a pain to figure out anyway--no reference. I mean, it was much easier to just hang around 6 foot 3 inch tall guys and compare for Tsukasa and Tomonori, but where would I find the seven-foot-tall guy? And Kasei's taller than me. No, it's easier not to get into mechanics there... Once again, general laziness for details, and squeamishness for slash prevails over my otaku nature.)
Uh huh. Right. The "puppy" thing again... Trust Kasei in all his matter-of-fact sadism to call a seven-foot-tall psychopath demon something diminuitive like "puppy." They can really be kind of nasty and fun together at the same time, which is why I like them so...My first real, and sticking crack-pairing... I've made it work off basically nothing because I didn't want MizunagiXLafayel. (Sort of exhausted any of the mild possibilities there. I'd like to use Lafayel's potential elsewhere for once. The pieces with him paired off with one of the other two erasers have sort of grown on me. Maybe I can work that in? Much different from the GW stuff at any rate--got to try to remember that. It's kind of hard with Lafayel...) Kasei and Ama-Inu are both not really nice, but they kind of leech something off eachother, and that softens some of the edges. But they're still pretty rough. Great stuff. (Yay! My violence fetish!) The "puppy" thing still occasionally gives me twitches. I mean...it's a bit cliche as a pet-name (har har Pundemonium.) but...well...I suppose I can suck it up and compensate with sheer awesomeness everywhere else?
...Fortunately, this all allows me to make Mizunagi heterosexual, which most fangirls don't seem to believe in. (Woo!) Funny stuff. Sexuality doesn't come up unless pairings are involved with most fics, and then, people are made gay to fit into someone's head-fantasy of them snogging someone else. Not so here. I like having Mizu the way he is. He doesn't have to get anything, but he can just be there. The fic so far has him sort of lightly tease Kasei in such a way that Kasei sees him as harmless. Kasei might be a little attracted to him, even, but he's knows it wouldn't go anywhere. But they still have an interesting chemistry... (There was that one MizunagiXKasei fic someplace back in the old days, wasn't there? Maybe I should dig it out of the fic-collection folder...) It still adds a little tension because Ama-Inu can get jealous. He's actually pretty possessive of Kasei. Kasei treats him like dirt, and he actually likes it. It's hysterical to me for some odd reason. Deliciously convoluted. (This is the point where Kuga comes in and cries, "Hell is other people!" Poor guy. He's too normal for the group, almost. Why do I find that perfect?)
...Kasei X Itsuki. That needs to go up on my crackpairings list. Word. Next to that freaky Tracer X Itsuki business for Wrath. Brain? You scare me.
Kuga...well... He's turned out nicely. I had insight for his reaction to Kaoru as sort of a foil to Mizunagi's the way I made Mizu. Mizu's more his GW sort of self except without the eraser background, or really, the strong ties to his faction. (Which has to go since Itsuki professes to be "the only male kin of my generation", either one has to make separate families to compensate, or one has to make VERY few men in the faction in general. This time I'm going with the second choice. GW uses the first.) Mizu likes strong, domineering women and so sees Kaoru as a great sort of woman all around, though he's the one who really knows for sure that she...well...probably likes girls. He wouldn't make a move because she's his master, and as far as he's concerned, the woman makes the move. (So glad I looked at Kuga after tightening that Wrath Tracer-POV. Good stuff.) Kaoru doesn't even spare him a glance. (She's sort of borderline at best with that whole Mana-centric business of hers. I'm still working out what I'd do with Kaoru. She's quite interesting material now that I've tackled some other difficult ones... Femmeslash? Do I dare write my first femmeslash piece?) Kaoru's a bit young for Mizunagi anyway...And I wouldn't torture poor Kuga that way. (I'd also probably get brick'd... So...)
Shame I can't do End of Chapter Parody since both chapters are coming up...
Kaoru: I'm just here for the porn.
Mizunagi: (bemused) Great thing to be here for. Read this one?
Kaoru: Luscious Lolitas? (frown) I don't think so.
Mizuangi: (grin) Great place to start. (waves it teasingly) And it's half catalogue.
Kaoru: GIMMIE.
Mizuangi: (laughs as Kaoru claws her way through the magazine)
Kaoru: (gasp) I want that!
Mizunagi: That? (whistles) Sweet Pea, can you imagine the look on dear Kuga's face if you even tried to ask for it?
Kaoru: ... (slumps)
Mizunagi: (gives it a second look and nods approvingly) Good taste, though...
Kaoru: ...
Mizunagi: ...And it's a cute dress she's almost got on, too.
Kaoru: I think that's a boy.
Mizunagi: What's with the scars on the back? Now that I have to wonder at.
Lafayel: (wanders through and does a double take at the picture) Holy crap! ISRAFEL!
Mizunagi: Well that explains alot...
Kaoru: I want a different magazine now.
Jokes aside..."sweet pea" has potential for a Mizu-pet-name... (an Ororon reference? Am I serious? I wonder if anyone will notice...)
Kuga turned out nicely against Mizunagi. He wants to protect Kaoru, nurture her. She really is his little girl deep down. (At least relationally speaking. He has such pure intentions...Why do I want to call him "Riff"? I wonder... Does that make Kaoru "Jizabel" because of the hair? Must stop reading manga before writing fanfiction or I'll end up with another one of those "recasts" like the Loveless joke with Mentu-rin...) ...Poor Kuga. He can't stand to see Kaoru remember because it might cause her pain. I thought it was a great deal nicer than the romantic pairing of the two of them. It allows Kuga to be what he is, and still care a great deal. (He's also a bit of a foil for Tomonori in that he does actually have a fatherly relationship with Kaoru, versus Tomonori's really twisted up thing with Tsukasa a la Control... I get my kicks in strange ways.) --Another problem with fanfiction: people often forget there are some relationships in the world not forged either by the sunflower-cloak-power of friendship, the frightful vase of romantic angst ('tis not a vase--it's an ash-pot for funerary purposes. Farewell years of my life spent slaving over Control! Stay in the vase, demon!), or those ghastly ties of sibling affection and loyalty... (So not the time or place to think "Angel Sanctuary"... Blech. Go figure, the series ends and I still can't stand Setsuna and Sara...)
It's funny that parental relationships or even adoptive parent relationships are often not well done in fanfics. Probably because most of us on the interweb (Thank you XKCD! I will write about this on my blag!) are teenagers and we really can't tell a good or bad thing when we see it on that front. (Myself included.) Perhaps having him see her as a child makes him hurt all the more when she does things he doesn't want her to. (That sounds like a good dynamic to follow--FUTURE NOTE) He's too permissive as parents go, and for that he suffers--having the utmost good intentions, but unable to discipline. How perfect. Kaoru's real parents ignored and verbally abused her at the least from what we know in the canon. Kuga represents the other end of the spectrum. It's because he spoils her and cares for her, in a way, that she can go so utterly bad in the first place. That seems to follow canon and let me preserve Kuga's basic "goodness." (He has a sort of purity to his character that really appeals to me in a strange way now that I've started putting him in. He has a bit of potential there. The ineffective good guy? I like those. Dang I need to find a way to put in Shiba! I haven't worked with him since that fragment with Tracer, Tokiko, and Gabriel! And that never left the ground! I miss Shiba! Why can I never write anything with him in it? Add "Shiba X Kasei" and "Shiba X Mizunagi" to the list...)
Before I forget to hit everyone, Lafayel amuses me incessantly, and I find him to be great inspiration and nasty driving force for many fics. Thus far, I don't have much planned for him fic-wise. He's just mentioned there because he seems like a problem they'd be discussing--conversational realism, as it were. I might not even use him. I mean...I use him for so much else...
"Girlfriend" is going to be the bit where someone points a finger someplace. God I hope that doesn't happen. The "girlfriend" thing is just Mizunagi being teasing as far as I know, though. Mizunagi's hetero, so naturally, he puts in the word "girlfriend" rather than "boyfriend" or "birdyfriend." (I'm considering all possibilities, though... Something tells me this version of Lafayel would make an especially crappy boyfriend. Must be why I want to write it so bad... (cracks up)) I'm not looking forward to the possible collateral in reviews since most people probably know I like Lafayel and are bound to misinterpret that, but the joke...? I think it might be worth it if I build on it. Humor possibilities shouldn't be neglected...
Heh, my backstory if anyone asks: Ama-Inu and Kasei had a bet going as to whether Lafayel was gay or not what with the outfit. Ama-Inu's screeching because he was betting that Lafayel didn't care. (Obviously, Kasei was betting he was gay.) Technically both of them lost the bet. Maybe I'll use it for plot later...?
Lafayel and Mizunagi had a rather prickly almost-friendship going for them. I notice now that my version of Lafayel has changed quite a bit from where I started with Atlanta's Apples. Now he's no longer quite the petulant, screeching brat he was, so I'm pretty happy about that. That's working really well for Gracious Wings especially, where I finally have interactions between them which feel neither stilted nor unnatural-and-OOC. They've come a long way. Sort of a discreet tip of the hat where I can put it. A happy milestone... Yay, Lafayel is finally useful and more than just a fun sideshow. Yay! Now I can actually set him aside. (Funny how that works isn't it?)
All in all...just some dialogue things to fix? Those always seem harder when I start putting in dialects and interpreted dialects into characters. Especially if there's little canon basis. (sigh) Oh well. What's done is done. I'll probably get used to Kasei and Ama-Inu's ways of phrasing things with a little practice. Time to go back in... And I'd better remember those other ideas. Possibly a chapter three there or onwards? I need all those I can get...
-o- END OF AUTHOR'S BRAIN-PICKING SESSION -o-
Some of the other finer points of interactions are easier to point out or see in the next chapter. (which I have for sure.) So I'll point them out there.
Mind you, I'm putting all this up, not because I'm trying to dumb down things for the world in an entertaining manner, but I'm trying to show some of the process or the 'feel" of slightly unspoken character traits just in case this dies, so people will find it easier to jump into if they want. Call it the "Neufe challenge" and take it where you will! Or, retranslate your own fanon of bad-guy characters! It's great fun!
See you all in chapter two!
-Neufe