Warning: Time travel. BAMF!Yuni. Character introspection. AU. AT. Amnesiac!Yuni. The second part of the prologue is in another POV. Varia!Yuni.
. . .
. .
.
Prologue
Chapter 00
/ juveniles / a kid / a bicycle / suicidal teenager situations / an angry foulmouthed life guard / the police /
. . .
. .
.
.
"You're playing a dangerous game here." He is a lull, deceptively peaceful and aging quietly in an abandoned room. He places his hands on the window sill, regardless of the broken pieces of glass.
His existence is what silent living can begin – madness. Insanity.
"You can't a play a game you design," she murmurs, and she is like quantum theories and Schrödinger's cat, possibilities and realities and the unknown, but her voice keeps the madness that brings at bay.
They are not puppet masters. It would be foolish to say so. They are the strings that connect the puppets to the masters.
She picks at her sleeves. Even she, sometimes, doesn't understand her own thoughts.
.
.
"Who gave the kid permission to touch the explosives?"
Her feet slapped against the burning pavement – Sarah had long discarded her slippers; they'd dug into the space between her toe and the next finger. The sticky feeling of being crowded with the water park's visitors – all eager to see the fireworks – urged her forward. Why'd she even think of getting a job with such extensive contact with crowds? She'd always thought of herself as rational!
Finally breaking through the crowd – most people were situated near the pool and the centre of the water park – she turned to her coworker.
"Nobody!" he panted back. She made a lopsided smile out of frustration. It was a rhetorical question, dammit.
"What? The kid knocked out three of the staff and decided to try and burn her head off?" Highly unlikely. "Why'd you come get me instead of stopping the brat? Was it a teenager? A pack of teenagers?"
The tawny haired boy – Mack or whatever his name was – shook his head. His hair slapped her cheek and she closed her eyes tightly, listening to the lady's voice saying 'Count to ten…one…two…'.
"No, not a teenager – well, maybe? It was hard to tell. Pretty skinny, the girl." The guy moved his arms rapidly as he talked, whacking into her abdomen. She choked on saliva and chlorine air mingled with hotdog smells.
"Sorry!"
"Fuck it!" She stumbled. "Just run faster!"
"No! Wait! There's more!"
"Spit it out!"
"This teenager –"
"Don't. Just don't contradict and make an idiot out of yourself."
" – he came and knocked the others out. Actually, he shot them. But the kid knocked him out with her bicycle."
Her legs stopped mid-run. What. What. Like, what?
"Why are you so calm?" It was frustrating for a random idiot to display such extreme obliviousness; he skipped straight from 'air-head' into 'badass'.
They stopped at the entrance of the parking. Eerily empty, except for a few cowering people sitting in their cars. It was to be expected that a small percentage of the visitors would have the strategic capacity that would enable them to observe the fireworks in the parking lots. Which was good, or else she'd have fuck-time to get her car out if the parking lot was a modern century rendition of the Civil War.
"No," she deadpanned, "no, no, really?"
"This is my first summer working here, man!" She waved her fists in the general direction of the two injured people on the floor and the girl sitting on the car's roof. "Cut me some slack, will 'ya? I've got a dog as good as a kid who I need to provide for!" She trudged forward. The kid spared her a glance – her breath stopped. She caught a flash of sharp eyes before the girl unleashed another firework. For some reason, the girl's eyes just stopped her in her place. Something about them was just sorta…wrong.
The kid had a couple of fireworks situated on the van's roof, setting off multipile ones at once. Crappy work and no sense of artistic timing, but at least the visitor's would see something.
She trudged forward. The fire extinguisher they always kept at hand just in case laid next to a small, thin teenager with floppy black hair. A few meters closer to her and further from the boy was one unconscious coworker, another one that had her hands pressed onto his wounds, and a third who seemed to have lost his breath, eyes wide and nostrils flaring.
Shit. He was in shock.
"Call the police!" Her voice echoed in the parking lot. An old lady whacked her son with a cane as a hint to get his phone out. The other people snapped into action once they'd noticed they weren't the only ones, in total moron fashion.
Mack stepped towards the injured man and crouched next to the woman. He didn't have any electronic device on him. None of the workers at the water park had any, obviously.
Sarah hesitantly looked at the injured man. He had his hands over the woman's hands (that were over his wound) and had a calmface on and said: "I'm fine, I'm fine," while the woman taking care of him - Cosette, dyed pink hair and peirced eyebrows - scowled at him. Dude was in shock.
She turned her face from him.
She wasn't any good with blood and injured people, bile rising up her throat and the ocean sounds taking over her thoughts, so she focused on the girl. The blue and red lights illuminated her face. She stared solemnly at the sky, eyes narrowed and brows furrowed, face cinched tight, like she was trying to burn the sight of the fireworks on her eyes.
She had blue eyes, like the cookie monster. No, wait, they were a bit brighter and the blue was more…clean. And light. Like her Listerine mouthwash. As for her hair – she thought it was black, blinked and noticed it was more the color of a garbage truck. Must've been the night. Generally, Sarah was capable of using better examples, but in high adrenaline situations that ability flew away.
"Oi! Kid!" She scowled. The kid's hand faltered over the next rocket and she settled her eyes on Sarah.
Oh. Oh, brr. They were…really cold. And sort of unfocused. Kid sure liked fireworks.
The girl gave her a pensive look, and then thoughtfully scooted aside. "Do you want to sit next to me?" she mumbled. Her voice was almost transparent in its fragileness, almost lost in the distance between them. Sarah noticed her arms trembling.
She softened slightly. It must've been cold and the girl wore black shorts and a measly black shirt.
Sparing a glance at the injured dude on the ground (it was only his knee, good, not likely for him to die) and then the guy with his eyes clenched tightly shut.
"Him too…" the kid said."He must be really cold. Shock can do that." The girl boredly looked down at her fireworks. "I would've done something, but I'm afraid he might turn aggressive on me, since I'm the only person he doesn't know and therefore a good outlet for his terror and loss of control."
Oh, so she's gonna have to be the sacrifice? Damn, kids these days knew how to coat their words.
Sarah shrugged, the sweat freezing her shirt to her shoulders. The warm adrenaline had turned into a cold blanket and clammy armpits. Whatever. The police would be coming soon, anyways, so she might as well do some samitarian shit and prevent the kid from freezing to death. She hauled the guy to his feet and dragged on top of the car. She swung an arm across the girl's bony shoulders and the man's broad ones and dragged them close.
"It's going be alright, mister," the girl soothed. "The man got shot in his foot. It's hardly life threatening." The kid looked awkwardly at her, like 'help-me-please-i-dunno-how-to-do-this-shit'.
She patted her head. "I'll take care of him. How about you take care of the fireworks?" She offered. The girl brightened visibly. Might as well do the rest of her job, too. There was always the possibility of a salary raise.
The guy somewhat calmed down and stared obsessively at the fireworks and the girl turned into a solid rock, gazing solidly as well, far-sighted and lost.
.
Finally, when the police were right around the corner, the girl tore her eyes away and jumped off the car. Sarah gaped at her while she shuffled slowly away, her head swiveling across the sky, eyes quickly drinking in the last display.
"Wait!" she yelps. "Wait, wait, what the hell, kid, where're you going?" She awkwardly, but gently taps the guy's shoulders. He'd calmed down some five minutes ago. He got the hint, thankfully, or she'd have pushed him off the car.
She stood on the ground and raced after the girl. Her steps were significantly faster and longer than before. Sarah narrowed her eyes. Trying to get away, was she? At least she tried to hide it.
"Hold it." She clamped a hand on her shoulder. The girl stilled. "Where do you think you're going?"
The kid stood there for a minute, then turned slowly. Geez, everything about her was taking it's time. She was more like an old chess player than a brat who reached Sarah's chin and threw a bicycle at another, homicidal brat. The kid stared at her chin quietly. "My mom would go mad if she knew about this." She looked at her feet. Or maybe it was Sarah's generous chest. "And I don't…I'm scared they'd think I was a criminal."
She softened. "D'aw, hells no. They'd never do that to a little kid like you." She gestured at her arms and then backtracked when she remembered her ability to throw big objects at people. Now that she thought about it, the girl had some damn fine legs. Toned, even. Everything about her was long, long legs, long arms, long eyelashes but for her hair. It nicked her shoulders, the edges curled and bouncing forward. Which, admittedly, was nothing compared to Sarah's braid. Sarah's braid groped her butt.
"Come on." She placed a hand in the crook of her elbow, fingers gently holding her in place. The kid was blank faced, but something in her screamed desperate prey. "It'd be more suspicious if you ran away, anyway. And I'm sure your mother will be proud to hear her daughter single handedly saved an entire parking lot of people."
The girl relaxed, although her shoulders were still tense. She looked up at her broodingly. "Do you know what he was trying to do?"
"Uh…no, not really."
The kid nodded once, like she was reassuring herself. "He was going to start a water park shooting and then kill himself. An extreme act of 'if I die, I'll take you with me'," She glanced at the boy. "Must've been desperate." Her glance was oddly pitying. "What are they going to do to him?"
Sarah sighed and put a hand on her back. "Nothing nice, I'd guess."
She evaluated the girl. "Although, if what you said was true, he'd deserve it."
The girl was unreadable.
"I guess…" She blinked drearily. "What an idiot."
"Say, what's your name?"
…
…
"…Yuni."
...
A/N: this is undoubtedly a time travel fic featuring darling Yuni. This prologue is a test, really. I have a series of really strange AUs featuring really strange characters. I might just make a series ;P.
Anyways, I'm in some sort of writing block. I just can't write and what I write is practically crap, including this one.
Anyways, I have some really important questions:
What would you like to see in this story? I've already planned various things, including Varia!Yuni. What else would you like to see? Yuni/Hibari friendship? Yuni saving Mukuro and CO? Yuni befriending Fran or Chrome? Please, please, please – I really need your opinions. PM would be perfect. Reviewing is A-okay as well.
Yuni or Uni?
Present tense or past tense?
Also, the OC, Sarah, is not important to the plot. She's a secondary character at best and won't have a place in the following chapters (except somewhat in the first chapter.)
Disclaimer: KHR doesn't belong to me, but the AU, fanfic, OCs and takes on the characters belong to me, amongst other stuff, like setting and plot. The prompt for the firework scene and the 'conversation' with the 'man' in the beginning of the story belongs to ghostflowerdreams at tumblr.
In the topic of pairings: gen, most likely. Once the characters interact more you're free to interpret their interaction however you like. There might be hints and light background pairings.
Please drop a review. I'm interested in seeing your reactions to this.