Mmm, mixed reviews… Sorry I took so long, it's mainly because I feel people can only read so fast… Plus I keep pointing you all at Vixy. While I love her works and am super thankful for her help… Her works are actually kind of long and take time to read too. So… Yeah. Anyway. Let's see here…
EDIT: To add on, I got distracted by Star Ocean release, picking up full-time work, and a few other things of an assorted nature that I'm not mentioning. So yeah. Super long chapter so we can get out of Soul Eater. Enjoy.
EDIT:... Yeah, so my muse kind of abandoned me… and apparently Vixy for a bit, but mainly me. And life got super busy. And very very insane. Like, in perspective, my life is nearly as insane as Orion's. So… I am super sorry. But consolation? Super long chapter, and we return to RWBY at the end of it. And the only person going with the natives (and Orion) is Fiona. Couldn't think of a good reason to take Blair along, so she stays.
RRC: So then. Let's see…
Reaper of insanity: Nah, Orion never gets break. That would ruin the point. And the insanity is more my fault than yours.
Raidentensho: Never seen… actually anything at all of Kamen Rider. And while Orion occasionally rips off moves from media, sheerly because he can, his own equipment and fighting style is mostly self-made. Glad you're still enjoying, As one of my most faithful followers!
Drunkle Qrow: They're back in Remnant near the end of this chapter. I'm glad you liked the RWBY bits. *gives cookie*
Potato Man: Yeah… The whole thing with ALL of the girls is going to be… awkward, especially when he introduces Fiona to them…
Bob-870: Yes. Yes indeed. I went there.
Selias: And end it shall! This chapter.
Tri2: Uh.. no? Because insanity is actually no real joke? Seriously, at the end of last chapter, Orion pretty much qualifies for at least sociopathic, and he's actually a fair bit psychotic. Uhm, not to be a downer, but psychopaths are not good. Ever. Glad you're enjoying though.
Hikari-san: Yeah. Consequences of me doing no research. *shrugs* Whoops.
Yes, yes Ozpin is. Oobleck is… conflicted. He gets better about the whole thing.
Heh, everyone in RWBY-verse is going to revolve in and out of Orion's life, the closer they are to him and the more they interact with him on a regular basis, the more often they'll be dragged into his weirdness.
That's… Eh. Probably rarely going to happen if ever, because again, PSYCHOSIS BAD.
That would be telling. But Orion can be afflicted with Synesthesia later… and no, not the Noise spawning paint from Xomniac's Worm fic.
Doctor Psychosis: No, no, we are NOT getting Ozpin high. I see that ending badly.
… So apparently it might happen at some point. Because Vixy finds it funny. It'll either be a not so serious snippet or an omake though. I think. Eh, we'll see...
Umbra: Glad you're enjoying! Yeah, madness is entertaining in terms of media. In reality? It's actually kind of horrifying… on so many levels…
Yoshtar: … I did not know that about Roman and Velvet, though I knew about Neo. Interesting… Welp, I feel justified in my actions then.
Isodrink: *gives cookie* Thank you for the constructive feedback! I truly appreciate it. I cringe whenever I go back and read the first 5-6ish chapters… I WILL go back and rework those… at some point… maybe… my laziness wars with my cringing.
Anerian James: Another chapter!
ShotgunWilly: *gives cookie* Well we are back to RWBY! And yeah, Soul Eater took longer than expected, I commented on that in the AN. Somewhere. Good luck finding where though, the AN is kind of a mess.
That one nigga: *gives cookie anyway, shrugging* Meh. It isn't JUST other anime. First it was a game.
So, I'm going to sum up my response to any and all flames here, including any grumbling at me for crossovers or including Vixy's character or pretty much anything else I plan to do from here on out that might annoy you? This fic, is because I want to write it. I put it up for the possible entertainment you all get from it, but really? Half of this fic is self-gratification crack of seeing what I can feasibly get away with, another quarter is seeing how myself and now Vixy through Fiona can fix various anime after screwing up canon in the place, and the remaining quarter is seeing the reactions of you people. I'm serious occasionally in story, but honestly? This fic is more like a game to me than any real piece of writing. You have an issue with that? Don't care. At this point, anyone else who just blatantly complains about what I'm doing without ANY justification or helpful criticism is going to be reported. I have little life, and tremendous amounts of patience when vexed enough, I will go through each and every reply and report the flames. The RRC is proof I go through every review anyways.
Now then… on with the story.
Tales of Death City (Yes, I know, blatant, but it's fanfiction, so it's allowed)
"Sooo…" I drawled, spinning on the rolly chair in the infirmary. Around me Sid and Mira were rummaging through the drawers and shelves, inspecting various bits of paperwork and medicines. After dealing with Medusa in a permanent manner (and getting some sleep because fuck it it had been a long day), it was brought up that Medusa had been nurse here, and head of medical outright, for a fair period of time. Enough for her to have done a fair bit of damage or experimentation to the students or the supplies, which would be very very bad. "Aside from, you know, making sure that the witch didn't do anything to the students or sabotaging the medical supplies, anything else you're looking for?"
Sid didn't even look up from the student reports he was checking over. "Any of her research or anything non-school related she may have written down. Dossiers on fellow witches or possible allies she may have looked into, things like that. Even Stein, as hyper-intelligent as he is, writes things down, so she must have written some of her ideas down somewhere in here."
Due to my state of Madness, despite my rather normal behavior, I was instructed to always remain near a member of the faculty at all times in case I slip back into the Madness, at least until the Death Scythe that could suppress a Madness wavelength got here, which would be within the next day or so. I didn't mind; I got along fine with all of the staff aside from Stein, and for now he was preoccupied with other things so he wasn't available to be on the watch for me. Fiona was off teaching one of the classes, with Oobleck teaching the other (hell if I could remember which was which; I didn't even know there were two separate classes of students until I came here). I stopped my spinning to watch as Mira set other set of folders down on a bed before going back to inspecting the cabinets as Sid set one report aside and opened the next.
"Don't suppose you guys would like a little help?" I asked casually, leaning back. The zombie man shrugged, glancing at me briefly before returning his attention to the paperwork.
"Sure. Might as well, since you're here. Anything that looks out of the ordinary is our goal here."
I nodded, understanding, before shifting my attention as I felt a brief spike of pain throughout my body, twitching. Ow, damnit Kaijin, quit that!
"Hmmm… Nope. Anyway, if you want to find Medusa's files, I'd recommend the hidden drawer in her desk."
I tilted my head curiously. Hidden drawer?
"Indeed. My previous host set up a hidden drawer into the very bottom of the desk, then used spatial magic to increase the amount of storage space within it. Here, allow me…"
I felt another pain, this time mainly focused in my left leg, before my heel was suddenly slammed into the desk behind me, just below the drawer. As my foot retreated, the bottom of the desk slid out where I hit, and kept going until it hit the end of the room in a comical manner. Inside was an array of various folders and files, along with some medicinal bottles at the back. I blinked at the sight, while Sid and Mira gaped at the sudden appearance of so many incriminating papers right below their noses.
"... Well whaddya know? My luck isn't purely bad." I commented idly, picking up a pill bottle and inspecting it curiously. "Huh, this is interesting… Apparently this is supposed to enhance the durability of the Black Blood over time with small doses." Suddenly a blue-skinned hand swiped the bottle away from me, causing me to frown. "Hey."
"Don't even think about it." Sid scolded me, putting the bottle back and cautiously looking over the drawer for any traps that might be in place. "So long as your stability is in question, you don't get to experiment with anything that has a fairly decent chance of making it worse."
"How rude of him. And just after I helped."
They're kind of right. I shrugged. "Fine, just don't get rid of that stuff. Might come in handy."
Sid looked up. "How could something that worsens Madness come in handy, ever?"
I waved my hand flippantly at him while my other pulled a folder at random from the drawer. "I'll explain it when your expert looks me over. Meantime, incriminating evidence and evil plots that must be gone over." I opened the folder and… I tried to pale, but it didn't happen. Possibly because Kaijin was regulating my blood flow so it was still perfectly normal. Note to self; when all of this is over, go gambling. "I knew I forgot something important."
"That being?" Sid asked even as he pulled out another folder.
"Medusa had a kid that she experimented on with Black Blood." I kept my tone decidedly neutral as I read through the document. "Like, to the point that the kid's Demon Weapon partner IS HIS BLOOD. Goes by the name of Ragnarok. And he.. Or she, Medusa switches between pronouns, is currently locked up in Italy. Like, locked in a room with no light in a safehouse in Italy that only Medusa knows about and hasn't been fed for a day."
The only sound after that was that of the folder hitting the ground.
"... And so, because I helped, you're now stuck with me for the rest of the day while Sid and Mira go take care of that little problem." I finished up as I leaned back in the rolly chair I had stolen from the nurse's office. After finding out about Crona (read: remembering), I had been picked up, chair and all, by the panicked zombie man and tossed in the classroom wheels first, landing on my back in front of the stunned class, Spirit, and Fiona. I hadn't bothered to get up, so really by leaning back I was just relaxing on the floor, hands behind my head. The floor was really quite comfy. "So, what you guys teaching?"
"Right now?" Fiona checked the clipboard in her hands. "A whole lot of nothing. Testing, remember? We just finished with administering said test yesterday, and since they haven't yet been graded for specific, not to be mentioned reasons…? We're doing a review. Geography and how to read a road map 101."
"Map reading, a dying skill, sad to say." I commented from the floor. "Geography close enough to ours that I can contribute? Actually, wait, no, nevermind, I barely passed Geography…"
The dead woman heaved a sigh. "Yeah… I know. But still, if a corrupted soul leads a meister-weapon pair off the beaten track? It's at least beneficial for the kids to at least be familiar with how to relocate a road or any sign of civilization. So… yeah. Spirit's just here to be in the way, I guess…"
I watched as a gloom cloud formed over the man's head as he suddenly seemed to teleport into a corner, huddled to the ground grasping his knees. "Damn, that's harsh. Uh… I kind of can't leave, sadly, because I need to be near someone capable of subduing me that isn't Stein at all times, so... " I tilted my head to look at the students. "Who's bored and wants to fight me?"
"If you would let me finish teaching the class what they need to know in case of the worst… I will." Fiona snapped a little irritably. "Until that time, take the pervert back there and whack him about the hallways a little for all I care. He can't read a map to save his damn life."
"... I'll at least whack him." I cracked my neck before standing up and lifting the rolly chair, hefting it. "..., Eh, the room's reinforced. Hey MAN-WHORE WHO CAN'T RAISE A CHILD!"
Spirit immediately stood and spun, rage on his face. "What did you just call me, br-" Only to be cut off mid-sentence as the chair slammed into his skull, sending him flying at the wall. I scowled after him.
"Would you people PLEASE quit calling me a brat! Only people who can get away with that are people who have over 4 decades on me."
"That would be me, brat. Take it out of the classroom so I can at least begin the lesson."
"LIVING 4 decades longer than me! You don't count ghost lady." I snapped back before dodging an irate Spirit as he attempted to cut me. "The hell man! That could have killed me!"
"No it wouldn't. I've seen your Aura, remember?" He responded dryly, shifting his stance.
"Ah… Right. Allow me to deliver the appropriate response!" I raised a finger… Before turning and bolting out of the classroom, waving cheerfully at Fiona as I passed by. "Be back in a bit!"
"Try not to dent the floors and lockers too badly with his face, the kiddies don't need to see that anywhere permanent." Fiona offered blandly, turning to the rather dumbfounded class watching their supposedly well-respected authority figures bicker and fight like children. "Now then, everyone turn to the compass each meister has…."
Fiona's voice trailed off as I took a sharp turn and bolted, Spirit skidding out of the classroom. "Come and get me, you ABSOLUTE FAILURE OF A PLAYBOY!" I called over my shoulder as I legged it away from the classroom.
"I AM NOT A FAILURE!" He roared back, a multitude of blades sprouting from his back before he leapt, an array of blades barreling at me.
"Oh shit-" I ducked and rolled as he soared over me, coming back to my feet with my gauntlets equipped. This… Might be a bit difficult.
"I suppose I might as well help… With that Aura of yours, you don't really need the durability, so how about a strength boost so you can actually smack that pervert around? He was quite annoying to my previous host."
I gritted my teeth as I felt a shifting within my body. Carrying the Black Blood was a highly uncomfortable feeling: even normally, you could always feel the blood running through your veins, though I could ignore it after a bit. However, whenever Kaijin felt it necessary to switch which boon she was granting me, I went through a fair bit of pain as she did so. I would thank you if that didn't hurt so much.
I then snapped out the blade on my right hand and caught one of Spirit's legs on it's downswing, locking us into a temporary stalemate while our weapons clashed. "Heh, maybe not my brightest idea to fight a living weapon." I commented, straining to hold up his leg with one arm.
The man merely chuckled grimly. "Yeah, it's generally a mistake people don't realize until after they're all cut up."
"Oh, I never said it's a mistake. It's not like I'm totally outclassed here." I offered before slamming my left fist into his groin. His eyes went wide before he dropped to the ground, rolling back and forth while clutching his nads, tears of pain streaming down his eyes.
"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? HAVE YOU NOT HEARD OF MAN LAW?!" Spirit cried as he rolled back and forth. I rolled my eyes at him.
"Actually, no. Anyway, whenever you're done? I know you're far more durable for that to put you down for more than a few moments." At my words Spirit rolled over onto his arms before spinning and launching another bladed kick out of me that I leaned back to avoid. He suddenly changed direction without any loss of momentum and struck out at me again, this time actually hitting me and slamming me towards the wall, causing me to grunt in pain at the point of impact. I staggered away while he jumped back to his feet, bouncing up and down briefly.
"Ok, what? I know you defied at least two different laws of physics there, what the hell?!" I demanded, stopping and shifting into a boxing stance. Spirit shrugged, hands in his pockets.
"I'm a Death Scythe. Hell, I'm pretty much THE Death Scythe, to be honest. You didn't think I was useless without a meister did you?"
"Well, to be honest…" I trailed off, letting him come to the obvious conclusion. "To be fair, you pretty much are? What with your daughter showing you absolutely no respect and your constant belittling by your coworkers…."
He immediately huddled down into a gloom cloud, crying tears of sorrow. I had no patience for that, however, and he suddenly was toppled over by a bucket to the head. Immediately he came to his feet, a tick mark on his head. "QUIT DOING THAT! And where the hell do you keep finding all of this stuff?"
I blinked, then looked to where I grabbed the bucket. Floating in the air was a mop and broom enshrouded in a purple aura, along with a cat riding a pumpkin. "Apparently from there. Hi Blair."
Blair leapt from her perch to land atop my head, laying down on it. "Hello there. Why are you two fighting?"
"Because I'm bored, and he wasn't contributing to class, so Fiona asked me to, and I'm paraphrasing, 'bounce the pervert's skull off the hallways'. So, that's what's happening."
Spirit immediately became enraged. "I AM NOT A PERVERT!"
I gave him a completely blank look before glancing up at the cat currently quite comfy on my head. I reached up and grabbed her before perching her on my shoulder. "Feel like helping with something?"
"Depends on what it is." I lowered my voice to a whisper and began to confer with her. After a few moments, Spirit stomped his foot.
"Oi! We're fighting here!" His face became decidedly worried when Blair and I turned evil expressions upon him. "Why do I suddenly fear for my dignity?"
Blair leapt from my shoulder at his face, enveloping herself in a cloud of smoke mid-leap. She popped out of the cloud of smoke as nude as she was when she went in, and thus smashed her massive nude breasts into the Death Scythe's face. "Spirit-kuuuuuunnn!"
Give the man credit, he lasted for about 10 seconds, a fair bit longer than Kilik. Of course, he still lost to his hormones, and thus his head shot back from a powerful nosebleed. Even still, I could see he was still conscious, though fairly weakened. Blair fell to the ground and, demonstrating her impressive flexibility and overall body shape, and threw the man at me. I, in turn, caught him by his collar and the middle of his shirt and continued the throw, launching him out of a nearby window. I blinked as I suddenly realized what I had just done. Out in the air I could see Spirit blinking as well, as he came to terms with his situation. Blair strutted up to lean on my back, still without clothes.
"... How many floors up are we again?"
"3, dear."
"Ah. Whoops?"
And then Spirit let out a girlish scream as he plummeted. I leaned out the window and shouted down to him. "Don't forget to weapon-shift! It should help break the fall!" I then turned and looked at Blair, not paying much attention to her form. I jerked a thumb at the window.
"He'll be fine, right?"
"Probably."
"... wanna go see what happens if you walk into a class full of hormonal teens like that?"
"Lead on."
"Fiona, I'm back! And I brought a friend!" I called out as I wandered back into the classroom, collapsing my gauntlets as I walked in.
"Joy." Deadpanned the ghostly sergeant as she tossed a number of compasses in various working orders into a cardboard box on the recently refurbished desk. "Want to see what your skills amount to against an ANBU captain that specialized in assassination's signature assassination technique?"
"Only with less witnesses." I agreed cheerfully, before raising my voice. "You can come in now Blair!"
"Hi kiddies!" She called out as she entered the room, clad only in a towel that barely covered her important bits. She leaned down and pressed her breasts together suggestively. "Which one of you little dears wants to take a bath and play with me?" The last was said with a sultry tone as she dropped her towel.
Immediately, all of the males aside from myself, and a couple of females, in the room were unconscious after suffering an extremely powerful nosebleed. The conscious females were gaping in either awe, envy, dumfounded surprise, or a mixture of the three. I laughed heartily at the sight.
"Miss Blair, while I realize you may not have the social norms we do, I have to ask you to at least cover up in settings where there's underaged children about." Fiona tapped her fingers against the desktop, looking rather irritated. "It's unsanitary for one, all that blood has to be cleaned up by either me or the staff here before someone tracks it all over the place, and for another it's rather unseemly to do this in a classroom."
Blair shrugged, doing interesting things to her body, before she poofed into cat form and hopped up to rest on my shoulder. "Mmmm… I suppose. Also, a window's broken in the hallway."
"...I will take that in favor of having an imprint of Spirit's face on the walls or floor."
The cat yawned from her perch carelessly. "Also, this one put me up to it." She tapped me on the shoulder to indicate who she was talking about.
"Well then, Mister Orion, let's see how many times it takes you running into a wall before you adjust to having your senses hijacked." Fiona offered perfectly innocently, except for the smirk edging up one side of her face. "Black Star still has a very disappointing habit of knocking himself out when facing off with me."
"I will state that in my defense, you're training a classroom full of killers. I figured they'd have a bit more self-control, or if they don't, that it's something that really needs to be worked on." I pointed out slowly, equipping my gauntlets and rapidly slotting a pair of vials into them as I spoke.
"They are teenagers. Their biology has yet to settle into anything they can reliably exert control over just yet. In a few years more, maybe, but as of right now? When most are barely past the age of fifteen?"
I raised up a finger, before pausing. I considered it, before dropping my hand back down, shrugging. "Yeah, I got nothing except pointing at the world you came from. And Fangirls."
"Naruto-kun's Sexy-no-Jutsu working against the Third."
"That kid was messed up, I have to point out." I gestured around. "Sooo… We doing this here or somewhere else while the kids pull themselves together?"
"Since there's that little medical issue you still have, hell no not here." Fiona sighed out. "Which, really, you should have recalled about fifteen minutes before trying to pick a fight with a student. We'll go see Shinigami-sama. He might enjoy the diversion enough to help you out with that containment issue."
"In my defense, this only barely makes the top five 'weird shit in my life', and I feel mostly fine." I complained as I started walking towards the door, Blair still draped on my shoulder.
Fiona's HATE-tainted energy followed along after me. "There is so much I could say to that, but we'd get into another 'I have it worse' fight and I rather am tired of those. So, instead, I must ask. Why did you break a window?"
"After convincing Blair to smash her breasts into Spirit's face, she threw him at me. I reacted and continued the throw. And accidentally threw him out a window. Did you know gravity takes a few seconds to kick in if someone's surprised here?" I asked curiously. "That was kind of cool to see. Justifies a lot of shows I watched."
"You… defenestrated Spirit?" Fiona sounded highly amused. "...that is awesome. And yeah, but remember I have twenty-four years of experience in a world where they could and did stand upside down on most anything if they wanted."
"Eh, he'll be fine. Probably. And I mean yeah, but they couldn't just hang in air for no reason? Aside from Jiraiya getting a good enough height when Tsunade clocked him, anyway." I commented.
"...Ah, I had forgotten about that. The number of times I can recall Natsumi seeing him punched or kicked through a wall or three…"
"... it bugs me, but that name sounds really familiar. I can't recall where, though." I grumbled. "Meh, it's probably not too important. So, ladies first?" I asked as I opened the door to the Death Room.
Fiona looked skeptically at me before walking through the opened portal. "You realize you just basically begged for some deity up there to make it important, right?"
"I mean, it is a way to jog my memory along." I commented. Blair perked up.
"You're… kind of insane. Like, really bad. And maybe reckless." I shrugged.
"We know I'm insane. This is blatantly obvious. At least I'm not bored or boring." The cat seemed to nod before relaxing once again.
"Oh? I have visitors, how wonderful!" Shinigami-sama clapped his massively oversized hands together in an almost-human approximation of glee. Fiona gave the massive pile of paperwork being hastily abandoned a despairing look. "To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure, Sergeant Hanson? Mister Orion?"
"...well, we need a ref, Shinigami-sama."
"Preventing accidents is important." I commented. "Cause, you know, we all like… There's a lot of stuff I normally say that I actually can't, as one of you is dead and the other is so far beyond human that it isn't even funny."
"Well… I like not having holes in walls?" Fiona offered cheerfully enough for her. "And the lack of mental scarring the children might suffer… oh wait."
"Stein is going to do worse, don't even start." I cut her off. "Blair is mainly teasing, Stein is actually psychotic. Speaking of, hey Blair? Might want to get off now." The cat shrugged and hopped onto a conjured pumpkin, floating over to go hover near Lord Death.
"Stein actually teaches, even if his methods are… questionable." Dismissed the dead woman as she turned fully to face me. "Besides that, those kids signed up for that. Not you and kitty-lady of near-epicness over there."
"... Kitty-lady of near-epicness?" I snorted. "1. Seriously? 2. Why only near?"
"She lost points for going along with your idea."
The kitty-lady in question spoke up from her pumpkin. "I still think I'm awesome. Anyway, aren't you two supposed to be fighting?"
Fiona nodded a few times. "One, shinobi. I've already started the moment we walked into here."
I blinked. "Oh… I never noticed you do anything. I'm impressed. And also a tad bit worried."
"Natsumi basically tripped over this. And then proceeded to ram the heads of her co-workers, most of whom had been elite black ops agents for at least a good part of a war or two, into various walls and other obstacles at will." Fiona sighed slightly, shifting her weight to one hip and crossing her arms over her chest. "If even Wolf-taicho failed to realize it at first, and Jiraiya-sensei couldn't dispel it without senjutsu, it's wickedly effective of a jutsu. Especially in an assassin's hands."
I nodded slowly. "Soo… All of this seems fairly normal. I'm surprised I'm not, you know, being stabbed a nigh-infinite amount of times in a pool of blood or made to run screaming from some monsters or something like that."
"I'm irritated with you, not pissed off." The dead lady informed me wryly. "In all actuality, we're not actually in the Death Room. By the way."
"Awesome." I grumbled, rolling my shoulders. "Well, let's see… Test one." And with that, I channeled Aura into my gauntlets. More specifically, into the Lightning Dust vials I inserted back in the classroom. Of course, since I'm still a newbie, the electricity would fly everywhere, but that's the point.
The wild blue lightning was first drawn to the dead soldier, who winced as it passed through her and into a large metal contraption existing invisibly behind her. It then arced upwards to two very far points high up the 'Death Room's' walls.
"...tingly." Fiona offered after a moment.
Rather smart of him, since that both distracted her and lit up the bleachers behind her. She kind of wondered what he'd do with that, and what he might pull out next.
"Well, at least it hit something." I commented. "And now I know I'm in some kind of very large room with a large metal object, so at least there's that. So, not a complete failure for test one." I also had a rough idea of the dimensions, or at least some of, of the room, so I was less likely to run into a wall. "Did that even hurt you?"
"Again, I'm saying it was tingly." Fiona offered, examining her replica of Lord Death intently and adjusting the mask slightly to be less pointed somehow.
"... Really, you're not even going to pretend that this is reality anymore?" I complained, before shrugging. "Right then. Whatever. Test two." Kaijin?
"Hmm? This is kind of intriguing. I can tell something isn't right, but I can't pierce it. A very curious ability."
Right, so if you're done examining, I need you to work with me here? As in, I'm going to light up the room again, and I want you to shoot a needle at the dead-woman.
"... That's going to hurt. A lot."
Yeah, well… I gritted my teeth as I felt a shifting. "Test two."
Fiona was more than a little curious if Orion could come up with some way to defeat the kinjutsu that Jiraiya or Uchiha Fugaku hadn't thought of. So she didn't move, even when only slightly blunted instincts of a jonin kunoichi screamed at her to do so.
It wasn't like he could kill her, after all.
She was better prepared to deal with the shock of blue energy a second time, but the thin lance of black had her hesitating.
It looked similar to a Nara's shadow, a young one still learning how to manipulate their own shadows for personal defense, that the pain of Medusa's Black Blood Needle impacted her squarely.
The surprise had her lose grip on some of her kinjutsu, which caused a slight ripple effect in her constructed image of the Death Room. Fiona was pretty sure the basketball hoops peeked out a little even with her hasty correction, and she lost the image of Lord Death as well.
I let out a pained grin as the surroundings shifted after Kaijin's needle struck Fiona, the reaper disappearing and a brief flicker of the actual surroundings marking as proof. "Great, so apparently injuring myself won't break, but catching you off-guard will."
"...It's based off a Yin Release Illusion. The normal way of breaking a genjutsu won't work, since it's not really based off you but me." Fiona admitted easily enough. "You lucked into that, but it's a good test nonetheless."
My grin remained steady before turning into a grimace as I rolled my shoulder, feeling the wound closing as my Aura took up the job. Thankfully, only the blood Kaijin wanted out actually left for the attack, so no risk of anemia. "Good to know, though I doubt I'll fight that many Yin users. Right then. Test Three. And I apologize."
Kaijin?
"Hmmmm?"
I need to go a little mad. With the good sergeant as the target. Have fun. And with that I gave in to the Madness of Kaijin, letting her come to front as I battled my own Madness.
Fiona, or rather Natsumi, had been around more than enough crazy people to understand the shift in Orion's behavior.
Stag, for however a wonderfully stalker-ish right hand man he ended up being for Natsumi, wasn't remotely the craziest of the Konohagakure no Sato's ANBU forces.
She did not like that Orion apparently thought that going insane was a proper method of testing new things with. It probably told her something about him, but she was going to think on that later.
Once she got the reckless little twit to Shinigami-sama to snap out of his latest fit.
Being not-really-there, Fiona exercised a little of her ill-used ability of manipulating her not-physical form to dodge the first swipe at her. Basically making herself more ghost than a real person.
Orion sailed right through her. Skidded, then launched himself at her again with those oddly mechanized gauntlets aimed at her face.
"Miss Blair, might I suggest you either make for the actual Death Room or head home? I'm going-" Having a person fly through yourself, even if you weren't physically there, was still an odd sensation. "-to take this knucklehead to Shinigami-sama real quick."
Blair pondered for a moment before floating off towards the exit. "I think I'll go with you. I want to see where this goes, and I'm nimble enough to get out of the way. Plus, I think he's rather focused on you. Maybe we should have waited until he was checked?"
"Who uses insanity as a method of exploring new situations?" Fiona grumbled as the not-really-sane young man made another charge, this time swiping an armored leg through where her head should've been had she been real. One of these times, he was actually going to hook her dog-tags and then she'd end up chained to him. "...not sure how, if I'm going to remain intangible up to the moment I teleport us. Think you can latch onto him without hurting yourself?"
"While I would say yes, normally…" Blair admitted. "I saw him use that needle thing, like the snake-witch from earlier. I'm not entirely sure he wouldn't use it on me if I attempted to subdue him. I could probably just land on his head, so long as I'm not actively interfering. At least, if I understand the Madness from Shinigami-sama somewhat?"
"I haven't a fucking clue. How about this instead?" Fiona preemptively drew off said tags and dropped them to the ground. "I'll teleport him first, and come back for you so we don't risk that idiot attacking you."
"Works for me." Blair cheerfully agreed, poofing into her adult form, fully clothed this time as she shifted on her pumpkin. "I'll help restrain him so you can lecture him."
"Give me five seconds after I snag him." She tossed the magical cat-lady's way, re-solidifying herself just in time to catch a punch aimed at her stomach.
"- GRAH, why do I taste blue!" I roared out after taking a deep breath. I was lying on the ground of… it looked like the Death Room, but I couldn't be too sure. Huh. Kaijin?
"The dead woman teleported you."
Well, at least we know one way to snap me out of it… I made a mental note and looked around, then up. "Hi Reaper Man, how's it going?"
"Not bad, not bad at all. However, I must ask, what did you do to poor Sergeant Hanson? She looked… very irked when she dumped you in here with me." Shinigami-sama asked in return, dredging up more chairs from the space directly under his desk.
I sat up, cracking my neck. "Well, we were testing her illusion against me…" And then I was interrupted by a blur of blue-purple-red and suddenly I was pounced on by a human Blair. After a moment's scuffling she had me in her lap (being taller than me by a couple inches) with my arms bound behind me and her breasts pressing into me. I blinked. "Well, why don't you ask her? Also, really Blair?"
"Yes, really, get over it."
"YOU!" Fiona started, pissed off and not particularly concerned by who knew it. "Who the hell uses insanity against an illusion? What the fucking hell did that even tell you?"
"That I can work through it just fine?"
"According to one of my Madnesses, that apparently I can operate somewhat well through illusions while insane? Also, I think that's the most I've heard you curse." I commented cheerily. "So, how'd it work?"
"Poorly." She snapped. "You did nothing to me, since I am fucking DEAD. Since you failed to do anything to me, I could've changed my shape to something like Blair's cat-form and had you murder half the fucking school."
I slowly blinked at her. "I'm pretty sure I designated you as a target, and that you're not sociopathic enough to do that."
"And what, exactly, did you base that on? That I teach? I'm such a wonderful fucking example of a person even dead to not have outside motives of my own?" Fiona's tone had shifted to something sickly sweet. "If you would recall… I'M FUCKING DEMONIC, YOU LITTLE SHIT!"
"... Oh yeah. I kind of forgot." I pondered that for a moment. "Huh. Whoops. My bad."
Drawing a hand over her face, the ghostly sergeant cracked her neck and turned to the old god. "Shinigami-sama… he needs a freaking keeper. Since, apparently, he really doesn't think things through very much."
"Oi! You pretty much told me that conventional shit wasn't going to work, so I had to get creative!" I protested from my position in Blair's lap. "... Though I will admit to possibly needing a keeper. Because of the whole 'not particularly concerned that I might've slaughtered half the school' thing. Because I'm really not concerned, and I'm about 85 percent sure that's not a good thing."
"No, really?" Fiona blew out a sigh, glaring over at me. "You don't say. I figured that out when you thought going bat-shit insane was going to work when you already knew a creative approach was needed. Insanity is not creative. It's actual definition is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. FYI, attacking a dead woman physically is not going to work."
"The needle did. Kind of." I offered. "And by creative, I meant more unexpected. It's not like you could expect me to pull what I just did. It's not like anyone would expect someone to go insane at the drop of a hat and start moving in a completely different manner."
Fiona did not look sold on my reasoning whatsoever. "First of all, the Black Blood looks similar to a Nara technique when you used it. I was more surprised than harmed. You could have asked, since I had already given you bits of information before that. And secondly, actually yes. We call those kinds of people psychotic. Do you want to be called a psycho?"
"... Eh, would probably look bad on my resume." I admitted cheerfully, not really concerned. Which in itself should be concerning, now that I think about it. "Also, this conversation doesn't entirely work when I'm still trying to suppress all of the insanity again. Mainly because I find it very difficult to give a damn, due to the third Madness I mentioned before."
"Thus you need a damn keeper." She finished with a firm nod, looking back up to Shinigami-sama. "Sir?"
"...I think… Doctor Oobleck should probably be informed." The old god offered after a moment. "And… forgive me Sergeant Hanson, but could you remain near or around him? You seem to have a method to snap him out of it. If I'm not mistaken, this is the second time you've done it."
"Because tasting colors is so far beyond anything else that it sets my mind into disarray." I offered from my restrained position. Honestly, I was really comfortable. "As my current… persona? Let's go with that. As my current persona is dominant, it more than likely reasserts itself while everything is essentially rebooting. And yeah, informing Oobleck would be smart."
"Class should be out, I'd expect Stein to have dumped him in a nearby teacher's lounge so he could go experiment." Fiona huffed, still irritated but refocusing on something else seemed to lessen it. "Shinigami-sama, may I ask you break another spire of my crystal off? I'd rather keep my tags, and I'm not stripping Sid of his again."
"You are going through these at a very fast rate, Miss Fiona." The old god still drew her now slightly battered soul-rock out of his cloak and poked delicately with his oversized hands. The newly broken spire was picked up by the dead woman.
"I still have the shattered bits, but I have yet to experiment with the range I'll get with them." Fiona glanced from the crystal in hand to me and back again. "Alright, you have a choice. Either I shove this down your throat, or you willingly keep it on you for now."
"Because that's such a great set of options… You are really unconcerned with your soul aren't you? Yeah, just pass it here." I shifted a bit, and then Blair let me go so I could stand up and hold my hand out. "Pretty sure I've got a pocket inside of my jacket that it won't fall out of accidentally."
A set of glyphs flared into life near the shattered end before she handed it over. "In all actuality, I'm fucking sixty years old. Been killed twice. Or once and a half. Don't ask. I should be dead, am dead, and not entirely all that enthused with this still being here shit. What do I care if it shatters quicker than expected?"
I took the shard and shoved it into a pocket near my neck on the inside of the jacket. I had no idea why there was a pocket there, but it was useful. "I can't really say much, being completely deranged for a variety of reasons, so I'm only a bit better off if at all." I pulled up a chair and sat down, Blair plopping down on my lap in human form and leaning against me. I just went with it, Neo did the same thing all the time. "Soooo… Now what?"
"Now… I'm going to go fetch Doctor Oobleck, you can inform him of your stupid idea and why you chose to try it yourself." Fiona quipped cheerfully, all but marching down the guillotine lined path out of the Death Room. "Have fun planning for that conversation."
I watched as she wandered off and hummed to myself. "I feel I've annoyed her. Oh well. Not much to be done now." I shrugged. Blair looked down at me.
"Aren't you at all concerned about having to report yourself as insane to the man technically in charge of you?"
I shook my head. "Not really? My world doesn't use the same illusions, I can just outright ignore illusions of my world. Yeah, I'm insane, but I'm only dangerous if someone is stupid enough to attack me. Otherwise, I'm helpful to a number of people."
"If I may?" The so far mostly ignored God of Death interjected curiously. "Sergeant Hanson did just point out that there is other things you might not be well-suited to ignoring or evading that could be used to turn you against any number of people. Does that not concern you at all?"
"Currently? Nope. I'm still locking up the rest of the Apathy Madness, so no. It probably will, later, but then again, I live with a man who has an epithet of "The Reaper" who actually does outright terrify me, one of the few people or things that do so." I admitted. "Also, there are a LOT of people in my world who can restrain me, I'm not really that strong. Worse comes to worse, I go insane, someone stops me, and then I get dropped into a Grimm nest to see how many I can take with me. Sucks, but life."
"Hmm… I think, until you do care, you should probably avoid situations that might end up… unfortunate for others." Shinigami-sama mused aloud thoughtfully. "I do run a school, not a madhouse Mister Orion. However much Stein might make it seem so. I have a responsibility to the students, you see."
"Fair enough. I'll remain either here or near Fiona for the time being. If Fiona goes off to teach, I'll just have her drop me off here. Maybe we can play chess or something." I offered casually. Blair squirmed in my lap.
"And what am I supposed to do?" I blinked at her.
"Uh, whatever you want to? Like you normally do?" The cat-lady blinked back at me, then shrugged.
"Good point."
"Wonderful. Since Miss Fiona took up Sid's slack with the EAT class, I've been missing my usual chess partner."
I tilted my head curiously. "What, Excalibur doesn't come visit and play? How rude."
"Very. Alas, more than just one old god in an area amplifies the Madness Wavelength we put out. So… in a school I am bound to? Excalibur visiting is a very bad idea."
That… was probably true. My own Madness was made worse upon contact with Shinigami-sama, and the only reason it wasn't worse yet with the introduction of the Black Blood was because Kaijin was helping to actively suppress the other two. Even still, I was more twisted than before, according to my memories now that I had time to sit down and truly think about it. Huh. We're not actually doing too well on the whole suppression thing.
"Mmmm… No. I would recommend working with the people who actually know how to deal with a Madness based off of a Great Old One to help with that."
Good plan. We'll go with it.
So, after being dressed down by Oobleck once Fiona had grabbed him and by Fiona again, they both returned to class. They'll probably end up bringing it up again later, but I did point out that I honestly could've cared less at the time, so I'll at least be expecting it. Seriously, trying to lecture me when I'm apathetic to most everything? Like that's going to work.
The day passed by quickly with me playing various board games with Shinigami-sama and Blair, once we roped her in. Surprisingly, the cat-lady was actually really good at strategy games like Risk. When I asked, she merely replied that she telekinetically floated a multitude of objects all at once, so obviously she's good at multitasking, and left it at that. Lord Death, meanwhile, beat me at chess. A lot. I'm fairly sure he was holding back, mainly because he's an ancient being and if he was playing his best the games would've lasted anywhere from 10 to 20 moves. As is, I did manage to win one or two, and the rest did drag on for a fair bit of time.
I ended up sleeping in the Death Room, mainly because we really didn't want to accidentally risk me waking up deranged and possibly attacking Oobleck or whoever else knows. Fortunately, aside from finding out that instead of dreaming I instead chill out with Kaijin in my Black Room, nothing happened. Which was nice, because Lord Death's Death Scythe had arrived at the Academy. Evidently, she had been rushed here, instead of being allowed to take her time. Also arriving today were Sid and Mira with the rescued Chrona, who was… actually they were kind of acting completely out of it, I wasn't sure just how aware of their surroundings they were. Assembled in the Death Room were Shinigami-sama, myself, Fiona, Chrona, and Mira, the last probably to help deal with Chrona. Sid and Stein were off teaching classes, Stein teaching the EAT class because that was where Team CFVY were and Yatsuhashi… still hadn't gotten over the zombie phobia thing quite yet. Spirit was the one to escort his fellow Death Scythe into the room.
The Death Scythe in question was a young blond woman almost as tall as Spirit. Wearing a black long-sleeved dress with yellow pants and a black eyepatch with a thunderbolt insignia inscribed on it, she was rather friendly though self-contained. She stepped up to the old god and curtseyed before him. "Marie Mjolnir, reporting as ordered, Shinigami-sama."
The cloaked figure simply raised a hand. "No need to be so formal, Marie. How has Oceania been?"
Immediately the woman relaxed, slouching in her stance slightly. "It's been very quiet, thankfully. A lot quieter than what you seem to have been up to recently."
"Eh, it's been fairly quiet until I accused Fiona of cheating in Risk." I commented idly from my chair.
Said dead woman sniffed in mock offense. "If you can't keep up, brat, then bow out."
I restrained the urge to throw something at her. "I'm sorry, I can excuse the sleight of hand, I had long enough sleeves to do the same, but kinjutsu? Really? Just because Blair was winning?"
"If you're not cheating in the first place, you're not trying hard enough. Besides, in any military operation the goal of the game is to keep as many of your own alive as well as murdering as many of the other's as you can." Fiona batted a hand in dismissal. "Just because your abilities don't lend themselves to cheating as easily doesn't mean you have to be so petty."
I rolled my eyes at her. "No, they lend themselves to being good at pissing people off, being decent at fighting, and apparently surviving whatever life throws at me due to the interference of elder gods. No offense Reaper Man." I added offhandedly.
"Mmm… none taken." The overly cheerful God of Death assured me absently. "By the way, Marie, these two are Staff Sergeant Fiona Hanson and the other is one Mister Orion. They both, ah… require some of your skills, my dear."
I raised a hand in greeting at the blonde Death Scythe. "Heyo. I'm the mad one. She's the dead one. Purple dome over there-" I gestured at Chrona "-is the horribly traumatized and abused one with their blood serving as a demon weapon."
The blonde woman's stance shifted from "relaxed" to "professional". "I suppose then that I'll be starting with the child?"
"We'll live… or not, for a few moments more." Fiona offered to her fellow blonde. "He's next, the idiot seems to think insanity is a good method to test things with."
I shrugged. "Not my brightest of decisions… Eh. I can't do anything stupid now. Or at least, if I do, either you or Reaper Man can smack sense into me."
Marie just stared at the two of us. "Uhm… are you sure that the kid is the worst case here?"
"I'm more or less neutralized. Dead, partially demonic, but not out of control." The dead soldier jerked a thumb at me. "I'm also more or less neutralizing him until you're free. The kid's a kid, we're both fine with waiting."
I shrugged again. "I've apparently been suppressing one Madness for a few months now, another hour or two to suppress two won't do anything permanent. Chrona, on the other hand, is… kind of in a self-locked coma and completely without people skills. Or any skills that don't involve killing. Medusa's… kind of really fucked up as a parent."
"I thought it was three?" Fiona asked in a quiet voice, sounding a little suspicious.
I kept my voice low. "The third one is a non-issue for the moment. Chalk it up to the general insanity that is both my life and is as certifiable as I am."
Marie looked between the two of us before nodding to herself, apparently missing the byplay. "Alright then, Chrona you said his name was?"
"Actually, agender." I corrected. "Medusa… was really fucked up." I meant that in terms of Chrona was like that due to forced abuse, not any personal choice. God I felt sorry for anyone who would have to give the Birds and the Bees to the kid.
Marie blinked once. "Ok then. I'll help them first. This might take a bit." Marie slowly walked forward and bent down to look Chrona in the eye, who didn't react in the slightest. Huh, must be tuning out all external stimuli at the moment… I feel as if we didn't kill her enough. She rested her hands on his shoulders, and then began to glow in a soft yellow light, tuning out the rest of us.
I decided to voice my thoughts. "Sooo… after seeing this kid? Anyone else feel like we didn't kill Medusa enough?"
Spirit spoke up, though he was eyeing me warily. "Hate to agree with the insane kid, especially when it comes to harming a woman, but after meeting Chrona, I kind of feel the same."
"Keeping her alive for any torture would've been a logistical nightmare." Fiona put in, entirely unbothered with maybe resurrecting the woman and actually trying it.
"... There is that." I admitted. "Still feel like we killed her too quickly, regardless of the fact that doing otherwise would have been… remarkably bad."
"Situations like this is always bad. But do you think Chrona would want his/her mother about at all once he/she's better?" Shifting a little irritably, the ghost of a dead soldier frowned rather thoughtfully to the fake sky above us. "Hmm… man-she? Where do I recall that term from?"
"Point. And… yeah, I'm just going to leave that alone." I shifted my attention to Marie's glowing form. "Sooo… any idea how long she's gonna be doing that?"
"As long as it takes, Mister Orion." Shinigami-sama whipped another board game out of his baffling cloak. "But, since we've all collectively decided Risk is a bad game to play… how about Monopoly? Death-style?"
"... There's no way I'm convincing you to do your paperwork, so I'm in." Spirit resignedly spoke up.
I raised a hand. "I'm in. I'm fairly sure I'll be better than the perv who wastes his time and money at a gentleman's club rather than his daughter."
Fiona scowled at me, mostly fake but with a little annoyance still. "Some of those girls are very nice, mind you. Despite them having to deal with Mr. Creepy Pervert over there, I'm all for them robbing his ass blind."
"And I'll freely admit that they probably are nice people." I agreed. "It's just that a man with a teenage daughter really shouldn't be frequenting those kinds of places, especially since he really hasn't gotten over his last relationship and thus is burdened by guilt every time he looks at another woman."
Spirit, at this point, was sinking into the floor from the weight of the water raining down on him from his gloom cloud. Wow, didn't know those got that bad…
"So long as you weren't knocking those girls up. The gossip they share with me is fantastic." Fiona finally stopped leaning up against Shinigami-sama's desk. "I'm in then, sir. Sounds more fun than staring at Miss Mjolnir's back for however long this will take."
The sounds of motion and crying distracted us from our board game (well, us being myself, Fiona, and Shinigami-sama, because we shut down Spirit rapidly and thus he was working on paperwork), and directing our attention to the noise. Marie had engulfed Chrona in a hug, the young child bawling their eyes out at someone showing them affection and trying to help for once. I looked over at Reaper Man. "So… Think Marie can adopt the kid? Should help everyone involved."
Shinigami-sama glanced over to the pair thoughtfully, straightening out the cards that represented his monopoly on the rail lines of the game in his oversized hand. "Hmmm… can, should, will… It's possible, but something that should be left up to them to decide. I would have no objections if Marie would like to start her family early."
I nodded. "I agree that they should decide. Was merely asking if it was feasible." Slowly, Chrona was starting to go quiet, though still shaking in Marie's embrace. "Any chance the hate-demon-dead lady wants to go next for healing? She's been having her issues longer, after all."
"Dead-demon-lady isn't reckless." Said woman answered for herself, rather sharply. "I've been like this for months, it's not likely to change in a fast hurry Mr let's-go-insane-to-test-things."
"Eh, thought not." I placed the money I had collected down onto the middle of the board. "Whoo, free parking. Have fun." With that I wandered over to Marie and Chrona, the former of whom managing to guide the latter to sit in a chair. "So, feeling any better kiddo?"
With a quiet noise of surprise, the purple haired child of indeterminate gender moved, ending up hiding underneath the chair in a fetal position. I blinked down at them before casting a glance at Marie, who shrugged. "They're not in a coma. Everything else is a work in progress."
"... You know, that honestly makes sense." I admit, tilting my head to the side while thinking. "Psychological issues don't go away with magic… At least as far as I know."
"No, they don't. Magic just helps." Marie cheerfully agreed, resting her hands on my shoulders. "So. Your turn?"
"I guess? So, is there like a process or preparation for people who are conscious or…" I trailed off as her hands lit up with a warm glow. Huh, comforting. Very comforting… Wait, don't I still-
"Wow…. Interesting choice of decor? You know, most people's souls aren't this detailed." Marie's voice held a tone of bemusement. "Or, you know, detailed at all, really. They tend to be kind of… blank landscaping, to be honest. Also, nice suit."
"We established I'm not most people." I pointed out calmly, firmly keeping my eyes shut. "Also, I think there was a bit in Medusa's reports that the Black Blood has odd effects on people's inner worlds? Why didn't you encounter this with Chrona?"
"I think Ragnarok is self-developed enough to warrant his own soulscape, thus separating a large amount of the Black Blood's effects from Chrona's soul." Marie pondered aloud. "Something I'll look into later. During the rest of their… more than likely years long if not lifelong counseling sessions!" Marie's voice was still cheery. "Why are your eyes closed?"
"Because people tend to end up without clothes whenever they visit my soul. At least last time they did. Also, I remembered that I had a shard of Fiona's soul right next to my damn skin when you did this, and I'm merely waiting for her to speak up." My voice was flat as I spoke.
"Just to blow your mind… I'm actually naked all the damn time. Where do you think my uniform comes from?" Fiona poked the back of my head once. "Also? The decor is very… emo punk-rock. Is that supposed to mean something?"
"... Huh. Didn't think about that. Thanks ever so much for that mental image Fiona." I drawled. "And fuck if I know, I didn't pick it."
"Right… well, I have to go get Shinigami-sama to pay up on the death-hotel he landed on, leave me out of your soul-searching."
Then a third female voice spoke up, vastly irritated. "And where exactly is the apology for ALMOST KILLING ME?" Kaijin. Whoops, knew I forgot something…
"...and you are?" Fiona asked suspiciously.
"So, hey, Fiona, you remember when I mentioned that the third Madness was a non-issue?" I piped up warily, opening my eyes and edging away from where the sergeant was. "Yeah, she would be why. Kind of."
"I'm fairly sure I didn't try to kill you." She slitted a still suspicious glance to the naga in the room. "Or her. I think I'd recall that."
"Oh, not you specifically." Kaijin near-hissed at the dead woman. "More so the hate-fox thing in you that tried to eat me when you last cut me with that sword of yours."
"Oh… really?" Fiona purred back, a rather nasty smirk on her lips. "The only one I cut with my sword was Medusa, little snake. And if you are part of that bitch, you're never getting an apology from me. Just be thankful you're still… alive."
Marie piped up, also edging away from the two very… vexed, non-human females. "Ah, so, I'm a bit lost…"
I sighed. "Story time, made short. Medusa infected herself with her creation before we all tried to kill her. Black Blood tends to manifest as an appropriate youkai to the personality of the infected. Kaijin here was Medusa's, who then went to me when I got infected, and instead of turning into something else as would be appropriate, Kaijin retained her… let's call it personality, due to inheriting a survival instinct from Medusa." I then rolled my eyes, gesturing with a hand to cause a bookshelf to pop up between Kaijin and Fiona. "Let's not fight in my soul? I would appreciate you not killing the representation of my third Madness."
"A bookshelf? Really?" Fiona tapped the case with a nail, then shrugged. "I was leaving anyways…"
"What, you don't want to help come to grips with myself?" I asked sarcastically. "Or find out why, exactly, I'm preventing you from killing the last bit of Medusa in this specific dimension?"
"It's your soul. What do I care, as long as you are aware it gets free… I'm killing the both of you."
"Eh, I'm far more likely to go completely loco first. Seriously, Kaijin is why I'm still… somewhat, sane, along with my own capability in suppressing my madness." I shrugged. "And yes, a bookshelf. Surprisingly stable when made of bits of soul. And memories." I waved an indication to the many books on said bookshelf.
"The fact you think suppression is a valid method of dealing with things is so horribly wrong… that I refuse to comment." Fiona eyed the bookcase. "And secondly…"
She took a step, and stood sideways on it.
"Seriously not much use for anything but ambushing things in your soul."
"Which may or may not come in handy, 'cause one of my madness was caused by what is essentially an eldritch horror made manifest into reality. Sooo… who knows what all is in here." I pointed out carefully. Marie raised a hand.
"Eldritch horror? That doesn't sound good. Or safe. Or anyway sane or normal, by the by how are you still functioning?" By the end of her questioning she was studying me in clear concern in her one visible eye.
"Don't care, Shinigami-sama owes me fake money and the longer this goes on the better he's going to be in weaseling out of it." Fiona made a dismissive gesture, and with another suspicious look around flared a bright blue-purple-red and vanished.
"... Well, she was helpful." I commented sarcastically before causing the bookshelf to vanish, snapping my fingers to get Kaijin's attention from glaring at the spot Fiona once stood at. "So, as the local resident of my soul, where the hell is my Madness?"
The naga lady shrugged her shoulders, slithering forwards. "Well, the Madness you got from interacting with The Old One I have locked up myself, it's in one of the many rooms here. That was still a really stupid idea, by the way."
"I blame my other Madness for that, just to point out."
"Wait, you listened to Shinigami-sama's madness wavelength? Directly?" Marie spoke up, standing up straight and looking me in the eye. "What in the world convinced you that was at all a good idea?"
"... I needed a convincing excuse to lure Medusa into Shinigami-sama's room that wouldn't physically impair me for a long period of time?" I defended somewhat weakly, feeling guilty at the concerned stare I was receiving. "I freely and willingly admit that that wasn't my brightest of ideas."
I was lightly bopped on the head by a glowing hand. "Don't do that. Ever. Bad."
I bowed my head in acquiescence. "Yes Ma'am… Anyway, Kaijin! Madness! Where? And what do you mean rooms?"
Kaijin gestured at the many doors. "This isn't the extent of your soulscape. Think of it more as an entrance area. These doors lead to various hallways which in turn contain a variety of rooms that hold different sections of your memories. It's actually surprisingly vast in here. I have a room all to myself I'll sleep in when I'm tired, and it's filled with memories of my own. Your Madness of Apathy is in one of the rooms as well, along with the Madness of Order I have bound and suppressed elsewhere."
I blinked. "Huh. Cool. I have a training area somewhere or something or…" At Marie's look, I shrugged. "You know what, we'll look into that some other time. If you could lead the way please Kaijin?"
And with that we set off. The decor of the… I'm going to call it mansion of my soul, was still the same, a lot of black and red with brass chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. The doors appearances were the odd thing in the surroundings, looking different according to whatever the contents of the room behind the door was. When asked, Kaijin admitted that her own door had various snakes inscribed into the wood, while the one with my Order Madness locked up inside was covered in black blood so it was impossible to tell what the door looked like.
Finally, we reached a door that was just… blank. Purely average, nothing special about it, just a plain door. Actually, come to think of it, fitting…
"Well, here we are. The door leading to your Madness of Apathy." Kaijin stated as she slithered to a halt. "I'm not going in there, too much risk of something happening to me. I'll just head back to the lobby area while you two deal with whatever is behind the door."
"Yeah, something bad happening to you would end with me being even MORE insane, not something I want to deal with." I commented, cracking my neck side to side.
Marie cheerfully waved as the naga turned and slithered back down the corridor. "Bye Miss Kaijin! Thanks for the help!" Nothing gets to her, does it?
Once Kaijin was out of sight, I turned back to the door. "Ok, so shouldn't be too bad. I mean, it's a Madness of apathy. It's not like it'll try and attack us or have anything set up to slow us down or anything, right?"
"I stand corrected. I stand horribly corrected, and I apologize for dragging you into this by daring the universe Marie." I commented blandly to the glowing woman at my side.
"No no, it's fine. I mean, you were right, we really couldn't have expected, you know, this." She replied, sweeping a hand out.
What was she indicating? Well, that would be the two giant centaur-like monsters standing in front of a locked gate on the other side of the somehow massively expansive ballroom that was behind the plain door. Hanging above us was a giant chandelier that seemed far more ominous than the ones we passed before.
"... Ok, seriously, what the fuck? Why is this here? This makes no sense at all." I complained, only to blink as I felt something lightly land on my head. I reached up in confusion and pulled down a note.
Because I desire to be entertained. Get over it. Now go fight the monsters, because I'm bored as hell, and you're the only visitor I've had… ever.
-Your Apathy
I felt my eye start twitching in annoyance as I passed the note to Marie. "... I regret being an asshole to multiple people some days."
"... Penance is a thing?" Marie offered sheepishly. "I mean hey, look at the bright side. At least you can tell Fiona you told her so."
"... I am now less pissed off. Thanks Marie!" I hugged her with one arm brightly. "But seriously, two giant monsters? Really?"
I felt another note land on my head that I reached up and grabbed.
You have a point. And it would be more entertaining with more players… So I casually flared up your Aura to get other people's attention, so we should be seeing something happen in about three, two, one…
Three knuckles impacted the back of my head. "I was almost winning! What the hell is so…"
Fiona trailed off, flatly eyeing the centaur-like creatures on the other side of the ballroom.
"So, just real quick? I told you so." I told her, rubbing the back of my head, before offering the pair of notes to her. "Also, here."
"You told me what?" Snatching the notes, the dead-demon lady eyed the message and flicked through both of them. "What the hell do you think a bookcase would do against them?"
"Oh, not that, just the eldritch horrors that exist in my head thing. As for the bookcase thing…" I paused, tilted my head. "Huh, did it remember to…" A sudden loud roaring from the monsters was heard as I pumped a fist in celebration. "Hah! Just smashed a pair of bookshelves into them from below!"
"One, this is your soul. If you think it's nasty and wretched, it is. Secondly… to do what?" Fiona eyed the far monsters skeptically. "Hamstring them? They're jumping over your bookcases."
"Oh yeah, no, they're totally going to be immune to any environment bending bullshit hax I try, they're spawned from a part of me that wants to see a fight, any real damage will have to be done the old fashioned way." I commented. "Ah, real quick also? They seem vaguely familiar to you? Cause they do to me… Like old video game…"
She glanced at me, back to the centaur-monsters, and back. "Erm… if pressed… I'd say Legend of Mana? I was a really big fan of the game when I was a kid… And the one on the left looks a bit like Larc's nasty side."
I snapped my fingers. "Legend of Mana, that's it! Good times, good times." I blinked. "Oh right, fighting."
"One thing?" Fiona called out, glancing first to Marie then to me. "Erm… I'm all soul. If I cut up something either made from or part of your soul…"
"... Right, that would be bad…" I trailed off as suddenly a weapons rack shot up from the ballroom floor. "That'll work. I recognize a lot of these… Wow, in hindsight I was REALLY a hardcore gamer, damn."
Reaching over, the dead woman picked up a seven foot no-daichi once used by a silver haired General and swung it experimentally. "I'd say something… but… this is an awesome sword."
Marie also reached out and grabbed a wicked looking black hammer from the rack and swinging it experimentally. "This is all very weird… But hey, I'll go with it. What's with the shiny orbs in a few of the weapons and that sword Sergeant Hanson picked up?"
"...I have Materia. This is officially even more awesome." Fiona poked the semi-glowing balls of green and yellow in the hilt, then snatched a red one from a over-sized shuriken. "And we're murdering things now."
The rack sank back down into the floor, and I shrugged as I felt my own personal weapons, Caestus and Opug, form on my limbs. Reaching a hand out, I concentrated and smiled brightly as a dual-sided halberd with overly large blades formed. I twirled it around myself experimentally. "Right then. Am I forgiven for dragging you into the fight?"
"Depends on if they're any good, otherwise you're getting Masamune shoved in a very uncomfortable orifice." Hefting the named blade again, Fiona stared first at the green Materia then pointed her sword point at the Larc-rage centaur. "Let's see if this works… Blizzaga!"
-Cue Legend of Mana: Darkness Nova-
Three massive crystals of pure ice formed overhead, then were hurled at the leftmost monster, the one that was presumably Larc. It didn't sit there, drawing back both massive fists to shatter two of the three projectiles of ice. The third one smacked into it harshly, all four hooves trying and failing to find purchase on the ballroom floor as it hit head-on. The whole time, some very nostalgic music was playing in the background of the ballroom.
"I forgot how powerful tier 3 magic was. Also, damn but I missed this music." Orion commented idly before shrugging and gesturing, causing the floor beneath him to rise up and catapult him into the air, launching the madman at the Iron Centaur. "LET'S DO THIS!" With a shout he swung an overhead blow at the beast that it blocked with it's own axe, pushing it back a little. Orion grinned as the axe was being pushed back towards it, before paling as the end of it shifted. "Oh, what the fu-"
Fiona abused Minato's hirashin, teleporting from the far end of the ballroom to Larc's rump, lifting then swinging the massive length of steel masquerading as a sword downwards in an attempt to cleave the monster's head in two. It didn't work, but left a nasty gash on the back of Larc's boney helm. Wrenching the blade free, Fiona had to bail off the monster as it reared up and started kicking.
Marie was not idle. Even as Orion was launched by the floor towards the beasts, she herself rushed forward at the young man's target, hammer held in one hand as she ran. She winced slightly at the sound of gunshots, but as Orion was blown away she didn't see any blood, so didn't worry too much. Getting close, she gripped the hammer in both of her hands and swung, a heavy blow smashing into the beast's front right knee joint. It roared in pain, swinging a two-handed blow down at the blonde woman that she had to dodge roll from.
In free-fall, assisted by a really heavy sword dragging her down, Fiona wasn't positioned to continue attacking Larc. He was also trying to use his foreleg chainguns to put holes in her, so she hit the ground and darted under Iron's legs instead. While Marie was kneecapping the beast, she swung her blade against the rear leg wires in order to hamstring the thing, pushing in to be sure she did something against the undead mechanical thing.
Meanwhile, Orion dragged himself up to stand with a groan. "Why the fuck do medieval based monsters have MACHINE GUNS?" He roared to the… heavens would be the normal word, but given the situation, let's just say ceiling. "Nope, nope, fuck this. They want guns? Fine." Dismissing his axe, because he could just summon it back whenever, he held both hands up and shouldered a massive beast of a gun, practically a cannon. Carefully, he pointed it at Larc, pulling down on the trigger as a red laser-sight lit up on it's torso. After a few seconds, he roared, firing a large red laser beam from the weapon. "SMILE, YOU SON OF A-"
Sadly, Orion was aiming as Larc was still rearing back, and then fired when he went back down on all legs. So instead of taking a good chunk out of his torso, Orion mainly clipped Larc's left shoulder, taking a good chunk out of it and pissing it off even more. "Oh, come on!"
"One, SAY FIRE IN THE HOLE, ASSHOLE!" Fiona barked out, scrambling away from Larc's hooves. "SECONDLY… is that a cannon in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"
With a chakra assisted leap, and a handhold on some badly shattered armor plates, the dead woman hauled herself up to point her sword in Larc's face. "Let's see how this works… Leviathan!"
"One, I WILL FIRE THIS THING AT YOU WOMAN, NO PERVERSIONS AGAINST THE GIANT ELDRITCH HORRORS. Secondly, WHY ARE YOU SUMMONING IN CQC?!"
"...shit." A tidal wave cut off anything else Fiona would've said, smashing into both her and the monstrosity she was holding onto. The wave continued, knocking Larc into Iron and throwing them both to the ground with a teeth-jarring thud.
"Well," Fiona spoke up from behind Orion, releasing a soaked Marie and shaking the water out of her short blonde hair, "that was fun."
"Uhm, guys? They're getting up." Marie commented worriedly as the beasts staggered to their hooves, obviously worse for the wear but still going fairly strong. Orion grumbled under his breath as he threw the cannon in his hands at Fiona, mollified somewhat as Iron fell back to the ground with a splash.
"Well, at least Iron's having issues." He stated, before cursing violently as what seemed like blood flowed from Larc into Iron, swirling and seeping into Iron's wounded knee and hindlegs. "Seriously?! I KNOW THAT WASN'T CANON, YOU SONS OF BITCHES!"
Having dropped Masamune because holding two oversized weapons was beyond the ability of her first gut instinct when things were tossed at her, Fiona first eyed the cannon in her arms, the seven foot sword now lying on the ground, and then Orion. "The hell am I to do with this?"
Orion blinked at her. "Hold down the trigger for four seconds, teleport and shoot them in the face because there's a five second charge time and that thing is anti-tank and… Honestly, pretty much anti-everything."
"Huh…" Pointing the thing in the general direction of both Larc and Iron, Fiona blinked some leftover water out of her eyes and eyed both of the centaurs. "Which one first?"
Marie raised a hand. "I vote you shoot the demonic flesh beast one with all the blood that's fixing it's companion as we speak."
"...point. Alrighty, in five… four… three… two…" Next second, Fiona teleported just in front of Larc's helm of bone. Leveling the cannon in her hands to discharge straight into the right eye hole. "...ONE!"
The sound of the Spartan Laser going off was quite loud, discharging and… honestly obliterating the head of Larc. Orion blinked. "I'm going to admit it. I was kind of bullshitting, so I didn't think that would work."
Marie stared at him. "So why did you throw the gun at her then?"
Orion sheepishly chuckled. "Immense frustration? Hey on the bright side, my off the cuff bullshit worked didn't it?" As the madman spoke, the corpse dropped to its knees.
Fiona teleported right back to the same position she left, landing a bit heavily due to inertia from free-falling, blinking rapidly. "I think there's spots in my eyes."
"... Wait, how does that even work, isn't your biology just 'whatever the hell I think is correct'? Why don't you just make it so you're not seeing spots?" Orion asked curiously, staring at the dead soldier.
"...because I didn't think of that, okay?" Fiona screwed both eyes shut, then snapped them open again. "...much better."
Hefting the cannon again, she aimed at the only moving monster. "Round two…"
*Click*
"...that doesn't sound right…"
Orion blinked in confusion at the weapon. "That's the sound it makes when it's empty."
Fiona stared at him, then sighed. "Eh, would've been too easy anyways. Where's my sword?"
Orion pointed at the blade in the ground, then blinked at the monsters, specifically Iron that was stepping closer to the corpse of Larc. "What is it… OH WHAT THE FUCK, THIS ISN'T EVEN FUNNY ANY MORE YOU ASSHOLE!"
"...welll… actually," Fiona drawled out as she pulled the massive blade free of the floor," you're reactions are probably causing it. I mean, this is the most emotion I've seen out of you since you 'went mad' after all."
"All my apathy is with him, and he started merging the two boss level monsters before I said anything." Orion stated in a deadpan, pointing at the macabre horror show that was armor, bone, flesh, and blood mixing together and slowly coalescing into a new beast.
Tapping the seven feet of steel against one shoulder, the dead woman gave him a measured look. "And he's part of you, right? So on some level, you think this is funny. What would make it less so?"
"Nope." Orion threw his hands up. "Nope. I'm not having this conversation, and this ends now." Slowly but steadily, he began to grow larger. "Hack time, I'm turning into a giant and I'm going to go punch it."
"...If you could do that, then why did we just try to knock the both of them down with weapons made from your soul?" Fiona inspected the blade she had, gave Orion's massive back a pointed look, then shrugged and reseated the blade back into the ground. "...meh. Still an awesome blade for how impractical it is."
"Well, for one thing, because all of this is being stored in my memory and I can watch it later. Good times." Orion shrugged. "Also, because you just looked so excited to play with Masamune. Like a kid with a new toy."
"I… or rather Natsumi, are kenjutsu experts. We use swords, and we like playing with swords." Fiona shot at his back loudly. "I am not passing up an opportunity to use a damn near legendary sword for any fucking reason."
"... I'm going to save that "likes playing with swords" comment for later." Orion mused, before shrugging as he finished swelling. "Also, as your body is pretty much up to your whims, you could've just imagined yourself as a giant and then hit it with a water bullet."
"The water bullet would've still been me attacking your soul with my own, idiot!"
"Point, buuuut you're military, I know you know combatives!"
"I refuse to fuck with my form. Who knows what I'll look like if I got too comfortable in a different one?"
"Uhm, guys?" Marie piped up. "The monster finished transforming."
Orion blinked down at her. "Oh. Cool. Thanks. Now, to rip off yet another video game…" He ran forward, cocking his fist back as it caught on fire. "Falcon…. PUUUUNNCCCHHH!"
"Captain Falcon? Really? I only know him due to Super Smash Brothers…"
The flaming punch caught the newly formed monstrosity (now named Iron Larc because reasons( IE we the authors can)) in the head, sending it stumbling back, it's face alight. It roared and swung its axe at Orion, catching him in the chest and sending the newly made giant back a step as his Aura tanked the hit. With a shout, Orion made to move forward…
And then he paused. "Wait, no, fuck this." Orion jumped in the air, dropkicked the centaur in the face, and then fired the shotguns he had on his legs. Flipping backward from the recoil, he watched with satisfaction as the newly made corpse dropped to the ground. "Welp, I do believe we're done here. Anyone injured?"
-End Music (sadly)-
"Injured? We're in a soul. One of which owns it, the other of which is nothing but, and the last one is the supposed healer." Fiona pointed out blandly.
I shrugged as I started shrinking in size. "Force of habit, sorry. Now, you like playing with swords? Seriously? And what was with that pocket cannon comment?"
"Even before Natsumi got the Super Pervert for a jonin-sensei, we liked making perverted jokes." She answered casually. "And yes, before I died and lost a body I really liked playing with swords. In both meanings of the term."
"Huh. Honey pot assassin. Ok then." I shrugged before pausing. "Ok, now I'm morbidly curious. What's stopping you now?"
"We never took honey pot missions. Natsumi was engaged before she hit fourteen, and she had enough honor to not cheat on Shikaku." Snapped the dead woman, who paused and seemed to review what she had just said. "Erm… I mean… fuck. Sorry. Not my emotions there."
"It's good. Shikaku is vaguely familiar… Someone's dad? And also, back to the second question, because I am now curious."
Fiona raked a hand through her short hair. "Shikaku? Nara Shikaku, Shikamaru's father. Natsumi was basically Minato's sister-by-almost-legal-adoption. So… technically… my son-in-law? It's really fucked up how that twisted family tree joke went. It spread to Suna before anyone really realized what was going on."
I blinked. Blinked again as I ran those words through my head. Why does… oh holy shit. No fucking way. "... By any chance? This Natsumi Nara… was she part of the Hatake clan?"
"Yeah, it's how it started. Sakumo-taicho taught Natsumi kenjutsu, so when little Kakashi-chan had some difficulty with the Shinobi Academy, she stepped in as the senior Hatake kunoichi of the clan in Eri-kaa-sama's place as taicho's sort-of-technically-daughter. Civilian, so Eri-kaa-sama hadn't the foggiest what to do when little Kashi-chan was getting what amounted to death threats for… wait." Fiona blinked rapidly, refocusing on me. "...how the hell do you know that? That was so far off canon it's not even funny."
I chuckled sheepishly. "So, yeah, you remember how I mentioned I hated canon but really enjoyed fanfiction?"
"Fanfiction… would… be... " A few more owlish blinks, and it seemed as if the dead lady had finally put the pieces together by the blood vessel ticking away in her temples. "...you had BETTER BE SHITTING ME!"
I began to edge away from the very ticked off dead lady. "Uhm… Yeah, so, I uh… Look, it was one of my favorite fanfictions of all time before I ended up in the RWBY-verse, it was great, Minato and Kushina were just so sappy together, so were Natsumi and Shika, uh…" I raised my hands in surrender cautiously. "I'm just… going to shut up now."
"...I'm… going to go… do something elsewhere." Fiona forced out in a remarkably even tone, through gritted teeth. "We're talking about this later. If it's fanfiction, you know the end then don't you?"
"Yes, kind of, there's a lot of future holes for canon to deal with…" I racked my brain rapidly. "Uh, Minato and Kushina lived, so did Natsumi, and Naruto has the other half of fuzzy hate demon?"
"Of course he does, I was THERE THAT NIGHT." She drew a hand down her face, glancing once to the baffled Marie. "Later. We're talking about this later. Go deal with your personification of Madness."
"I'll… just be heading to do that… But hey, if it makes you feel any better?" I spoke up as she was still there and decided to try. "Minato inscribed your name on the stone. Yours, not Natsumi's."
"...of course he did, optimistic little fool." Rapidly blinking, Fiona made a dismissive gesture and turned on her heel. "Later. You have things to be doing."
A flare of blue-purple-red later, and the dead woman was gone.
There was silence in the ballroom for a moment. Then…
"So… What is fan-"
"I'm not going to answer that, do not ask, you do not want to know. Let's just… Let's just go get this dealt with okay?"
"Sure."
I blinked rapidly as the glowing died down, shaking my head a bit. Huh, mental representation of myself felt sooo much lighter… I blame me hacking my own personal reality. Oh well. I turned my attention to Shinigami-sama, bowing to him.
"I… wish to apologize for my actions over the past day. I may not have been in my right mind, but that doesn't excuse them. My most sincere apologies, Shinigami-sama, to both you and your Academy."
"...mmhmm… Since you're being honest, I must admit although interesting it was my fault you had the issue at all." Shinigami-sama mused aloud. "So… I think we're both forgiven, yes?"
I straightened up and sighed thankfully. "I'll agree to that. So, yeah, your Madness is dealt with, the other Madness I picked up I came to an agreement with, thanks to Marie's help-"
"Wait." Stein suddenly loomed over my shoulder. "I thought there was only one Madness involved."
"What the fu- get out of my personal space before I eviscerate you!" I yelled at the suddenly appearing meister, my gauntlets immediately enveloping my hands.
The stitched man merely cranked his head screw a few times, staring at me hard. "...boo."
I got my breathing under control before glaring at the man, flipping him off. "I will electrocute you. Anyway, I had two. One from Reaper Man because he's an eldritch horror made manifest upon reality that doesn't want to murder us all, unlike most, and one from whatever jackass being tossed me into this whole mess."
Shinigami-sama clapped his wildly oversized hands together, attracting the attention of everyone in the Death Room. "And moving on… what, exactly, did you say to Sergeant Hanson?"
I blinked, then looked around, noting her absence. I slumped slightly, immediately growing somber. "... Sorry Reaper Man, but that's between me and her until she says otherwise. Let's leave it at I know her from somewhere."
"So…" Spirit drawled out. "Since we're missing the last one Marie was supposed to 'heal'... now what?"
At the mention of people being healed, I blinked. "Ah, speaking of, where's Chrona?"
"I believe that young Chrona is currently huddled under my desk." The Old One commented neutrally, waving a hand in said direction. "Since we seem to be at a natural pause… reconvene in a few hours to finish up?"
As Marie hurried over to go help with Chrona, I shrugged. "Why not. I'm going to go find something to drink… Oi! Spirit! Where the hell is that club of yours?"
Grumbling under his breath for a moment, the Death Scythe glowered at me. "Do you really think I'm going to lead you to the one place I have to escape to? I don't want any tagalongs, or anyone cramping my style."
"For one, I have a list of various drink mixes I'm sure you haven't tried yet." I spoke as I pulled out my comment and began going through my scroll. "For two… This is one of several lady friends I have back home. I'm sure I can serve as an effective wingman." So saying, I brought up a… less nosebleed-inducing photo of Neo, though still fairly risque, and showed it to him.
Spirit twitched once, and clapped a hand over his nose before something suspiciously red and copper smelling started leaking. "...oh."
"Yeah, so…" I drawled, closing the photo and stowing my scroll away. "I need a drink. You know where the club is and could do with a wingman that won't dissect you or your partner."
Spirit slid a look at Stein, who was still creepily staring at me. He slid away from his former partner. "Point… SO! Onward to the bar!"
The Death Scythe dramatically pointed… at a window.
"Once we leave this room, I mean."
I grabbed the perverted failure of a father and started dragging him to the entrance. "Yes yes, let's go, hurry up before Stein thinks of something to come along, move move gogogogo!" At my last words I had dragged him into a run out of the room.
"...you boys have fun then!" Marie called out cheerfully, hoisting the shivering Chrona into a fireman's carry. "Stein, care to lead me to the medical wing and provide a set of hands?"
"Attached or not?" Stein questioned faintly as Spirit and I booked it down the guillotine path leading out of the Death Room.
"So, I just have to say, this is incredibly cliche." I commented neutrally as I walked through the iron gate entrance of the graveyard, my eyes set on a certain figure in it. "A ghost in a graveyard? Seriously?"
"Do you know a better place for her to blow off some steam?" Sid commented equally as blandly from aside the hanging tree he was leaning up against. "Because… as powerful as that lady is, I'd rather her lose it here than in the city."
"Doesn't that apply to every three-star meister Sid?" I asked walking up to him while watching Fiona vent. "Hell, I think that applies to a fair few people in my own world." I offered him a coffee, another in my hands to give to Fiona whenever she was done beating up her shadow clones.
The zombie teacher took it, but opted to stare at it instead of take a sip. "Honestly? We take missions if things get that bad. Travel, a target to not feel bad about whaling on, and maybe some sightseeing after we're done. She doesn't have that option."
I flopped on the ground next to him, delicately setting the coffee next to me as I drew a bottle of soda out of my pocket. "Mmm… I think that's what most Huntsman do. An acquaintance of mine prefers sex, but she's not fully sane, so I doubt she counts. How much longer you figure?"
"We used to do this back when things were still new and Fiona hadn't quite adjusted yet. I'd say… she'd stopped spamming the clones around the time you showed up and is about done skewering them about…. Now."
I watched as the dead woman flashed and appeared behind her last clone, blade sliding into… heart would be the general term, but she's lacking the whole squishy organs sooo… Clone went poof. "Is it even possible for her to accidentally hurt herself like this?"
"Not as far as I've seen." Sid casually offered, peeling the lid off his coffee. "I'm going to head back now, fix whatever the hell you did. Please."
"No promises, but I'll try my best." I told the zombie-man, fishing a bottle opener out of yet another pocket and opening my drink.
Fiona eyed her blade, which wasn't really even a blade but another part of her, before just letting it go and turning on a booted heel to almost march to us. She gave Sid a nod, but almost glared at me. "So…"
"Ah… I'm out of here. If you want to tell me later you can, but unless you want to I don't have to know." Sid interjected before she could say much of anything, pushing off the tree and striding off to the gates. "That's just the man I was."
"So…" Fiona continued pointedly as the zombie-man headed out. "...what the ever loving fuck happened after I was gone?"
I shrugged, inclining my head towards her coffee. "Specify please? My memory isn't eidetic, and questions help me remember." I took a drink from my soda, moving to lean against the tree. "Kind of man he was… Man he still is, Sid is one of the good guys."
"He is... " Fiona frowned down at her coffee, and at least sat down instead of tower over me like a stitched meister that was not to be named. "More specifically, Minato, Kushina, Naruto, and Nagato survived, right? I mean, I knew handling one half of Kurama would help, but did… how… did everything turn out alright?"
I sipped from my drink, thinking back. "Like I said, they all lived. Naruto had the other half of Kurama sealed up, thankfully without the Dead Demon Consuming Seal, and the only other mark left was Natsumi's eyes changed color, she lost the extra spirit IE you and thus her kinjutsu, and Tsunade slapped her with a ban to try and prevent her from getting in over her head. Honestly speaking, I think Natsumi was extremely high A-rank, but not an S-rank kunoichi."
"Some of that classification relied on political power. Had it ever been widely known she was the ANBU General, she would've been S-rank. But yeah… fuck. That kinjutsu was pretty much Natsumi's ace in the hole." Fiona wearily rubbed her face, picking up her coffee. "Why in hell would losing me fuck with Natsumi's eye, though?"
"If I remember correctly, she knew she'd lose that ace at some point anyway, so it didn't hamper her too bad to lose it." I commented. "Don't beat yourself up over that, it was going to happen no matter what. As for the eye thing… logic. What color are your eyes, what colors were hers, and what colors were her mother's?"
"...mine are green. Natsumi's was green and blue, and her mother's was… blue and yellow. Shikamaru-chan inherited them." Fiona listed off, then touched the eye in question and started laughing. Slightly hysterically, but laughing. "Oh… Komushi, you little genius."
I chuckled. "Well, you had to watch from somewhere, right Fiona?" I sipped from my drink again. "Anyway, Natsu had another kid-"
"Wait, what?" Almost spilling her coffee on herself, the dead woman's head snapped up as she gaped at me. "Maru-chan caused her kidney to burst. Another child would have compounded that."
I shrugged. "Well, A. Tsunade is the walking definition of a miracle worker, and B. Natsu was determined to have another kid, or two, anyway. She enjoys playing with swords too much to stop the whole act of getting herself knocked up, that probably contributed too…"
"...I have another grandchild?"
"I guess?" I replied confusedly. "I believe one or both of the Bears was made godfather."
"Fuck the Bears. Were awesome ANBU Generals… but mindfuck." Fiona laughed again, not quite able to hide the grin before it dropped suddenly. "Well fuck, and I don't even… I'm not going to be able to see either. Shit. Change the subject."
I shrugged. "Sure. Welcome to the insanity that is my life. This won't be last time I end up in an alternate dimension, want to see where we end up? One caveat if you start hanging out with me." I pointed at her faux-seriously. "No trying to seduce me, I don't care how long it's been, I have enough women to deal with."
"Child, I'm a grandmother." She snapped back, almost on automatic. "And you have a shard of my soul, idiot. You're not getting rid of me that easily. I can pop in and see you whenever things get too boring."
"... If you ever pop in when I'm having sex, I will make your life hell."
Fiona snorted at me, sipping some of her very cooled coffee. "I'm the one that'll be haunting you."
I drink from my own soda, shrugging. Setting it down, I start laughing as a thought occurred to me. "I just realized something!"
Glancing up, the ghost-woman cocked an eyebrow. "What?"
"Haha… I'm a Halloween child being semi-permanently haunted by a ghost!" I chuckled in reply, caught up in the hilarity of the situation.
Fiona reached down, picked up a fragment of a previously shattered gravestone, and chucked it at my head. "A half-demonic ghost, thank you very much."
I stopped laughing as the rock hit my head and glared at her. "Ow! Why would you do that? Besides, even half-demon you still have a nice body-GODDAMNIT, why did you have to hit me in the head?!"
"The hell…?" Fiona peered at me suspiciously. "You realize I technically don't have a body, right?"
"The illusion you use as a body is hot, fine, and damnit! I'm now very annoyed with you, dead-demon-hot lady." I took a swig from my bottle. "Is life in third person for you?"
She blinked, and suspiciously inspected her coffee. "The fuck is in this?"
I waved her off. "What you normally drink, I just have some weird condition that whenever I'm hit in the head my brain filter turns off, it's heavily abused by my female friends so I'll say blatantly flattering things to them without thinking, and they know it's honest because hey, no filter."
"So you have near-permanent brain damage?" She wondered aloud. "I wonder if that explains Gai-kun, then…"
"It doesn't take much, and I have two separate healing factors, and for the love of god, do NOT compare me to Gai, I'm nowhere near as bad, thank you very much."
"There is nothing wrong with Gai-kun!" Fiona protested, then her face screwed up in confusion. "No wait, yes there was…? Erm… I would like to know what the hell now…"
I grumbled at her. "The Gai Natsumi taught actually had a sense of tact and moderation. He almost never used it, but he did. Since Kakashi is a dick he decided to see how much weird shit Gai could tolerate for a challenge, so he ended up with that horrifying suit and haircut anyway. You're probably more remembering canon Gai, who.. I'll be honest, I swear he has head trauma. A lot of it."
She gave me a look. "He was a taijutsu expert. Of course he had head trauma. Heaped on top of the stress of constant training or combat likely missions? It's a wonder Konoha didn't implode under the weight of supporting near five hundred jonin-track shinobi in peacetime, much less during the Third Great Shinobi War."
I blinked as I then remembered something, but I couldn't stop myself from speaking. "Which is probably why Natsu was so pissed when she accidentally ended up in canon…"
"...what."
"Not her fault. Minato was wondering about alternate dimensions, due to some weird-ass conversation, started poking the idea with fuinjutsu, and accidentally ended up merging realities during the chunin exam preliminaries." I blinked. "As an aside, jesus fuck, why is there so much black ink on Natsumi's file? Like… Why even have a file at that point?"
"...because any military runs off paper, and even if classified to hell there needs to be some kind of token to say she is a jonin, that's why. And when did you see Natsumi's shinobi file? That's only for Hokage, Jonin Commander, or ANBU General's view only. As far as I know, anyways." She considered it for a long moment. "If it was blacked out at all, then probably her non-ANBU version."
"Inoichi was apparently looking at it, it was a summary of pretty much all the shit she ended up dealing with up to… I think after Mist was settled down?" I pondered aloud. "And, I'm sorry to say, but fanfiction. It's also why I know why you don't drink."
"Why I… oh, yeah. Natsumi told Minato that story." The dead woman rubbed a hand over her face, cracking her neck absently. "Shit… so… you know pretty much everything then?"
"Not everything. The author obviously didn't cover every little detail of Natsumi's life, and I am now forever thankful the author didn't write smut scenes, but I know quite a bit."
"I have the memories of what is literally my spiritual daughter and what she did to her husband using the knowledge of sex I have." Fiona pointed out blandly. "And childbirth via blackout, a couple months of my grandson's first year from his mother's perspective. Try putting yourself in my shoes. Boots, whatever."
"I meant thankful in that if I had read any smut scenes for Natsumi and Shikaku, this whole thing would be EVEN more awkward than it already is, not any disparaging of your own memories." I clarified, then drinking deeply from my soda.
"One word. Breastfeeding."
I finished drinking then shrugged as I put my soda down. "That didn't come up… I don't think. If it did, it was very rarely. I can see how it'd be confusing though, to have first person memories of breastfeeding from the perspective of a woman with bigger breasts and goddamnit, shutting up now." I went back to drinking my soda.
Fiona cupped her illusionary breasts for a moment. "She did, didn't she? At least my ass isn't as fat."
I chuckled, lowering my drink. "I remember, oh man, she was so pissed over how curvy she was. Like, so pissed. And the lack of height."
"And her Napoleon complex. Her poor genin." Fiona marveled, smothering a laugh into her coffee. "I damn well approve of how Ibiki-kun handled that."
"Heh, you know, if somehow we ever do come across her again? You can totally lord over her that you have the body type she wanted back." I chuckled. "Oh man, she was pissed at her genin, her old self walking around with the body type she desperately misses?"
Snorting a bit harshly, the dead soldier set her empty cup to the side. "Might use the little midget as an armrest…"
I suddenly cackled as I remembered. "Oh, and one time Gai said that they weren't getting taller, she was getting shorter!"
The bark of laughter that escaped Fiona sounded painful. "Oh… he's my favorite. Definitely."
I chuckled. "I will admit, Gai that Natsu trained is far more tolerable. On the other hand, that was actually a part of a challenge between him and Kakashi. Gai's winning, as Kakashi hasn't called Natsumi old to her face yet."
She snickered. "Oh that little shit. Were they still doing that? I would've thought Natsumi… no, she never did interfere did she? Serves her right."
I sighed, calming down a bit. "So, feeling a little better Fiona?"
"No." The dead woman stated bluntly. "But then again, my life is someone's entertainment. It might be real to me, but someone scripted it. What kind of sicko does that?"
I shrugged. "The same type of person who makes anime, who writes stories. See, Fiona, I have a theory. End of the day, all of our lives, to someone else, is just another story. So far… I think it's fairly accurate. Way I see it though, oh fucking well, it's not them dictating our lives, it's them writing down what they see of our lives, more a transcribing of our history than actually acting as fate. Fate is a lie and bullshit, we have will, we choose as we please."
She gave me a fairly odd look. "I never bought into fate. But I think I like that theory. It's better than what I thought, anyways. And fuck it, I'm a dead demon lady. So what I say goes."
"See? You're doing better already with that mindset." I told her, pulling out another bottle from my jacket, this time a bottle of alcohol as I opened it. "Now all we need to do is get you laid by someone you won't kill and or maim afterward."
"I don't have a body, there's no involuntary impulses or pure chemical attraction to go along with. I literally have no sex drive, and can only recall an orgasm." Fiona bitched at me. "How the fuck am I supposed to get laid like this?"
"You're the living personification of mind over matter, we'll think of something. Last ditch effort, could probably bribe Stein to make you a flesh doll you could possess and inhabit."
She gave me a weirdly serious look. "If we end up in Bleach, I call one of Hat-and-Clogs' extra bodies."
I pointed at her seriously. "Boom, see, there you go! Progress! Could probably ask Yoruichi about how sex for spirits works too, god knows she'll tell us."
"Yeah… but Stein? That was what you came up with in order to give me a physical form? I wouldn't touch that offer with a six-foot-pole."
"... On second thought, I have no idea what I was thinking. I would blame the booze, but I can't get drunk any more." I stared at the bottle in my hand before shrugging and drinking deeply from it.
"...Tsunade-sama would kill for that ability. Maybe." Fiona looked pensive for a moment. "Why did she drink so much? Even without losing Nawaki-kun and her lover? Shikaku didn't drink nearly as much as he did in canon…"
I pondered that for a moment. "Well, canonically, it was because she wanted to drown her sorrows, and then after that it was because paperwork hell. In Deja Vu there was no mention of her drinking… But if I had to guess, still paperwork hell and she just enjoyed sake? Plus fond memories of doing so with Jiraiya?"
"...did they ever get together?" She questioned seriously, picking herself and her empty coffee cup off the ground. "I mean, I love Jiraiya-sensei, and that thing with Dan-san threw Natsumi for one hell of a loop."
I sighed. "Officially? No. It was heavily implied, however, and they were living together, partially for the sake of the kids, but I think also honest affection for one another."
Fiona clicked her tongue. "Tenzou-kun and Naomi-chan, I remember that. Poor kids."
I shrugged, climbing to my feet. "No one can save everyone Sergeant. We all just do what we can, and if you gave it your all, that's the best you can do. Life keeps going, the wheel keeps spinning, and we all just keep moving on."
"One, I'm dead." She pointed out dryly. "And two… are you really trying to give me a pep talk?"
"One, don't care, so's Sid, and you both keep trying anyway, so it still applies. Two, nope, just commenting. Now come on, we should probably go track down Spirit and Stein."
"...is it bad of me I'm not really tempted? I mean, yeah Stein's creepy and all… but… Spirit also grates against my nerves." She huffed sourly, crushing her coffee cup in one hand. "Pervert. The first thing he did when he saw me was cop a feel. And I was freshly woken up after dealing with His Royal Furriness."
I raised a hand. "A. Aren't you fairly perverted yourself? Like, to the point that Jiraiya was just a very poor excuse? And B. while true and I actually have little respect for the man in that field… He was also fairly drunk when I ditched him with Stein, and you do remember I gave Stein a vial of mass-altering magic resource, right?"
"First of all, there's a time and a place for perversion. To someone you don't know and are not sure about the capabilities of? I could've murdered him that close to me. And secondly, Jiraiya-sensei was more than an excuse. He was a damn fine sensei, we honestly learned a bit from watching him." Fiona mock sniffed in insult. "And third… yeah, I got nothing. While he's a great fighter and all… not really one I like much. Stein is... Probably going to get ahold of him later, you realize."
"Fair enough, true, a lot of respect for Jiraiya, and… while this is true, Spirit's current state of drunkenness is my fault. He challenged me to a drinking contest." I blinked, digged around in a pocket, and then handed Fiona a wallet. "Here you go. I have no use for the money he ended up betting all of. One of the nice ladies gave me the wallet to hold the winnings I got off him. And other guys that were there."
"I'd say something… no, wait. I'm saying it." She took the wallet with an evil smirk. "Good job."
"And now for the about face as I point out that while I can legally drink in the world I'm currently living in, I'm not 21."
"Orion… I have memories of child soldiers. If you're old enough to risk your neck, you're damn well old enough to drink. I wasn't a cop."
"... I'm uh, not actually officially trained to do this sort of thing. I work in a bookstore. As a clerk."
She gave me a pointedly amused look. "And you're doing what here again? Also again, not an MP. I really could care less. My MOS was forty-four echo."
I sported a confused look. "Uh…"
"...I was a machinist."
"Soooo, if I asked you to look over some weapon designs at some point…"
"I can read blueprints. And make things from them. And… well, I can weld. Fun point of fact, the machinist and welders basically shared a joint-sergeant slot. After E-4, we're required to know the other side of the military occupation specialty in order to advance in rank."
"... Ruby is going to love you to death when she finds out you can understand Crescent Rose's blueprints." I chuckled. "Crescent Rose being the customizable high-impact sniper rifle merged with a scythe she uses as a weapon."
Fiona's eyebrows raised up at that description. "...I would very much like to know how that's possible. The barrel in the staff? But… huh."
I chuckled again. "Yep, I think you're going to get along with the people I know just fine. Hell, maybe you'll make yourself a weapon! Pretty much everything in the RWBY world is also a gun. Hell, I've got a friend who uses lever-action shotgun nunchucks that can merge into a staff."
"Other than the fact I'm a dead demon woman walking?" She questioned me. "Because… there's that kid who can't stand the sight of Sid already… how does he feel about ghosts?"
"Apparently, it's only zombies. Coco kind of binge watched a fuckton of zombie movies… in the dark… at very high volume… So yeah. And eh, I'm friends with a guy with a monkey tail and a chick with legit rabbit ears, so long as you're not actively trying to harm humanity and/or faunus-kind, they really couldn't care less due to the genocidal monsters inhabiting a grand majority of the world!" I finished with cheer.
"Huh… while that normally would sound rather horrifying… for some reason I'm thinking 'vacation'." Fiona tilted her head to the side. "Were we doing something? Before we derailed on drinking ages, my military occupation specialty, and what your current world is like?"
"I could swear it was something important…" I trailed off. "Oh shit. Drunk Spirit with Stein in mad scientist mode. We should probably go… stop that. Now."
"I could teleport us…" Fiona offered, almost completely unconcerned. "I think Stein has my crystal still."
"... You know what, Stein wouldn't kill Spirit or otherwise maim him, it would make excellent bonding time for the two."
"Thought not. So… what's this Ruby like?"
"Good news everyone!" Shinigami-sama cheerfully announced to the people assembled in his office/alternate dimensional pocket of confusion that obeys his whims. "With the aid of Professor Stein, I have managed to open a mirror connection to the other world you folks come from!"
"For some odd reason, I'm recalling Professor Farnsworth from Futurama." Fiona muttered under her breath. "I'm bailing if we get an obviously suicidal delivery to do."
"Agreed. Though I'd like to think we're more competent and less killable than the Futurama cast." I murmured back to her, before raising my voice. "And, how exactly did you verify that it's the right world?"
"Oh… a bit of this, a bit of that… a few monster encounters later… I conversed with a nice young man called Ozpin. He claimed to be missing a team of Huntsmen-trainees. I believe that is you, yes?"
I tilted my head. "Young?"
Shinigami-sama bent down suddenly, his skull-mask nearly touching the floor. "Do you know how long I've been chained to this spot? Everyone is young to me, Mister Orion."
"Fair enough, Reaper Man." I admitted, shrugging. "So, Ozpin is on the other end of the mirror? Cool, can we talk with him?"
"Yes, yes, fairly simple. Simply come up to Mirror-san here, and I'll connect you." The Old One turned to gesture to the overly ornate mirror that was even bigger than his current form. "Might take a moment to reach him, crossing dimensions is fairly difficult even if you're only transmitting sound and sight."
"Just to clarify, how likely is it that you accidentally summon random monsters before connecting to Ozpin?" I raise a hand like a student, then glanced over my shoulder at Team CFVY, who were all glaring at me. "I'm sorry, I feel it's necessary to know if we have to fight for our lives. Again."
Shinigami-sama wiggled in place as he gave it some thought. "Oh… I'd say… a one in three chance of that happening. Ready? Here we go!"
Tapping in a sequence on the mirror's surface, the cloak the Death God wore suddenly shifted to show the back of a silver head over an office chair. Another few taps, apparently just to attract attention, then Shinigami-sama straightened up so he was positioned slightly offset and out of the way. "Headmaster Ozpin? If I may have a word… again?"
The Head of the Beacon Academy pushed himself around to face the window that normally wasn't an interdimensional view into a Death God's pocket of existence. "Shinigami-sama. I see Team CFVY are all accounted for, Professor Oobleck is present, and Mister Orion has not committed any grievous offence I need to apologize for."
"Ozpin! I demand hazard pay!" I spoke up half-jokingly, before pausing. "Wait, you have that little faith in me? And you're not even responsible for me, the only person who might be is Qrow!"
"I sent you there. I do have a hand in you being there at all." He took a casual sip of coffee from the mug plucked from the desk behind him. "And I'll approve of hazard pay… depending on what Professor Oobleck reports."
Fuck. "Fine fine…" I turned to the assembled staff of DWMA. "Well, it was nice meeting you all. I apologize for the whole insulting you're zombiehood thing we first did when met, Sid. Spirit, you're game sucks, work on it. Stein… Go die."
"Ah… one moment." Shinigami-sama interjected cheerfully before anyone could respond to that. "There's this one tiny thing I would like to ask of you all… well, Mister Orion more specifically."
I could feel the confusion emanating from… everyone with that statement. "Uh… I'll hear you out I guess Reaper Man?"
"Perfect! Well… you see… slightly embarrassing… but some of the creatures here can eat other souls." Rummaging around in his cloak, the Old One pulled a battered hunk of soul-rock belonging to a dead woman in the room. "And then there's this."
"Kishin eggs, and demon weapons, and such, yes." I blinked at the soul-rock. "I feel as if this leads to something very important…"
"Fiona can't stay here. I honestly wouldn't mind if she could," Shinigami-sama continued in the same overly cheery tone, "I do so hate to give up my chess partner for late nights. But if I wasn't suppressing her soul's wavelength, any number of creatures would try to eat this for the demonic taint she still has. And I think a Kishin with some of a nine-tailed demon fox's power is something that we all can agree is bad, yes?"
"...wait, do I get a say in this?" Fiona demanded, turning first to Sid and then back to the personification of death itself. "I don't want to leave. So what if I'm confined to Death City?"
"It's not as if you wouldn't be able to come back, Sergeant Hanson. I'm fairly sure Sid could keep his spire of your soul intact for however long it lasts. However… I would rather be safer than sorry when it comes to this particular trouble of yours."
"Sooo… why me?" I piped up. "Cause, while I'm one of the only two adults traveling back to that world, I have proven to have some… minor issues."
The skull mask bobbed a bit in a nod. "Yes, yes… and she can help you with that if you go too far. Honestly, you are also the only one here that knows what happened to her besides me and Spirit, and if she can't stay here…? I would much rather ensure she goes with someone sympathetic than just professional, no offence Professor Oobleck."
The professor in question sipped from his thermos-seriously, I just saw him use that as a weapon, how the hell does he drink from that-. "No offense taken at all! Indeed, I feel this is the best outcome for all parties involved!"
"Ah… K, I can kinda of see that…" I agreed cautiously. "But uh, isn't this kind of up to Fiona? As she's a sentient being?"
"I'm also dead, and didn't choose to be so or here or anything." Said dead woman pointed out. "But as it's a security concern, I'll go where Shinigami-sama says to go."
"... at least half of that is you planning dope slapping me when you think you can get away with it, isn't it?"
"Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies."
"... And why, exactly, am I agreeing to this again?" I questioned the Old One.
"Why, because I asked nicely!" Shinigami-sama announced brightly. "And because I will be forced to shove this into someone's soul if not."
"Stein would volunteer for that in a heartbeat." I pointed out, ignoring the snickering from Team CFVY behind me.
"I meant I'd shove this into your soul." Shinigami-sama corrected me, still cheerfully.
"... So I have to explain why I have a new roommate, to my current roommates. Joy." I spoke flatly. Then I shrugged. "Eh, at least she and I get along. Mostly. I can probably bug Junior to give her a job."
"Excuse you-"
"And!" Sid interjected just as cheerfully as his ultimate boss. "She can guard your things, never eats or sleeps, and is only a call away!"
"...I'm not a dog, Sid."
I spoke up. "Yeah, she's totally not a dog." I considered it, then decided to keep rolling. "She's a cat."
Fiona shot me a blistering glare. "Natsumi is the Leopard Summoner. Not me."
"... Well in that case you're a dog because you're related to the Hatake Clan." I pointed out, deciding to see how much I can annoy her with this topic.
"Dogs rule." She dismissed huffily. "And taicho's pack was fantastic."
"... Kakashi named his dog Bull."
"...well, it was a bullhound."
A cough redirected attention to the man in the mirror. "Excuse me… but, what is going on?"
"I'm giving the soul of a partially demonic, dead soldier to young Mister Orion here." Shinigami-sama announced as one would read off their grocery list. "She's well trained, rated excellent on a firing range with a rifle, and is undead so she's likely to become bored enough to hunt some of your world's monsters just for something to do."
Fiona snorted harshly in the background. "Woof."
"To be fair, the army was pretty much the bitches of Congress by the time I ended up disappearing from my world…" I murmured to her under my breath.
"I beg your pardon?" Said dead soldier asked icily. "I died out there, for your information."
"I am well aware of this and respect you for this. Less so the government that ordered you out there. Also, pretty sure differing time periods. Things changed. Not for the better." I sighed. "I think we have more freedom away from there then we did there, honestly."
"Dead woman." Fiona reminded me a bit pointlessly. "I have all the freedom now. And… probably. Fuck, that's depressing."
"Well, to cheer you up, at least if you wanted to be transgender it's cheaper for you now?" I pointed out, half-seriously.
"If I wanted to be male I could be with less than a thought." She gestured to her entire body. "This isn't real."
"Exactly! So… wait do you even have a gender then?" I asked thoughtfully, thinking about it.
She gave me a long look. "...I am what Natsumi thought Fiona was. The form, my memories, everything about me is originally a Kurama clan bloodline ability twisted and given a soul. If I wanted, I could be anything or anyone. I have less substance than a shadow clone… and we both know how Naruto-chan abused the fuck out of that."
"I call bullshit, because she had the spiritual overlay pretty much at birth, unlike every other Kurama clan member." I argued, before spinning to face the mirror. "SO ANYWAY… How do we leave again?"
"Oh… but this is fascinating! I haven't gotten her to admit her existence in so few words before…" Shinigami-sama wiggled in place again, then heaved an overly dramatic sigh. "But if you insist."
The Old One turned back to the mirror, which was showing a mildly interested Ozpin, and reached a hand into the surface.
"Now then, while I'm holding the way open… step on through."
"... Does that hurt?" I asked curiously, stepping towards the mirror as I did so.
"It tingles." Shinigami-sama offered unhelpfully.
"Huh." I shrugged, then took the soul rock from his other hand. "Whelp, let's do this then. FORWARD UNTO THE BREACH!" With that cry I ran at the mirror, rock held above my head.
"Plagiarism!" Fiona called out loudly at my back.
"... Seriously? I'm here again? Didn't we do this before like… 3 chapters ago?"
"Ow… my head."
"See! It's not just me! Interdimensional travel sucks damnit!"
"Fuck you, I teleport. The hell is going on? I was talking to Sid, damn it."
Eh, I'll send you back later. I'm getting my shits and giggles in. Sup?
Not my idea. I swear. One really shouldn't exist on multiple planes of existence without warning or any idea it is about to happen.
… I fail to see the problem.
Fiona's probably going to have a splitting headache and a desire to murder things again. We were trying to get her less homicidal… right?
"So… I recognize one of you, who's the other one?"
...you may or may not know me as Vixen Tail.
"Who?"
"Dude, cool, the author of Deja… Vu… oh shit…"
"YOU!"
And now I'm very happy therapy is in progress for you. And not in your dimension. At all.
So, amending that whole getting laid comment to pay you back for all the shit I put you through to you're both getting laid for all the shit we put you through. Not with each other, obviously.
Wait… what? When did I agree to this?
"Orion… exactly where are you?"
"I… have no idea. Existence is kind of… fuzzy at the moment. I'm both here and talking in bold letters. Somehow. I think. My head hurts."
Don't think about it too much. And when we had the whole discussion of getting her a gigai so she could get laid? It was implied.
Is Bleach coming up next? I thought it was FFTactics. Or HP.
I have no idea, I never decided where in the timeline any of this would happen, beyond FFTactics happening after Natsumi and Fiona meet again. Also, you're not remembering any of this, sucks to be you.
"No, wait. WHAT? I thought I was banned!"
YOU are. Yes.
Natsumi… Less so. And you know, the whole thing of Orion is dimensionally traveling and other dimensions are intersecting… it was going to happen. Didn't anyone mention this to you?
I think we're confusing them for our own conversations. I know they're scarily like us in getting off topic all the damn time, but really Orion. They're not quite up to thinking on this level yet.
Getting off topic and pretty much general relationship with one another in general.. My bad Vixy. So uh yeah. You're going to see Natsumi again. And Jiraiya. And probably Stag.
Stag was always a given. He's very… intense.
"So, what, do we just not get a say in this or something? Cause, I just convinced her we have free will…"
Eh, you do. We just… Actually, I think all we do is see just how much we can fuck up the multiverse and get away with it while writing down what we believe is the most likely outcome. That sound right Vixy?
Given how we write this? Probably. And… Orion the smaller, you realize the only one that will recall anything about this conversation is Fiona, right? You're… not capable of thinking like this.
Wait, how's Fiona remembering this again? I was just kind of spouting stuff because I figured she wouldn't remember…
She's partially demonic. The limitations of physical form have no meaning to her, so her brain will recall some of this. Not all, she's not used to it. But we do it enough times…
Whenever Orion finally unlocks his powers he might somewhat… anyway, here and now, we need to uh… remove the memories? Somehow? Vixy, you got a wand from HP laying around somewhere?
Why? I didn't say anything that would make her want to murder me… although I don't think she need encouragement right now. And… also? I think we're off track again.
… Just… Just give me Hermione's future wand please so I can obliviate the both of them.
Fine. Work on setting them back on course then.
Will do. So! Any last words before I remove this incident from ever happening in regards to your mental existence/s?
"You're a dick." "Fuck you both."
… As in, both of me, or me and Vixy? And you had to get it from somewhere.
I plead the fifth.
"I don't care, you're still an asshole!"
"Die in a fire."
K, so we're done here. Now how did that incantation go… one sec, I gotta go look it up…
You literally said it a few pages ago.
"...pages? YOU'RE WRITING THIS?"
"... I think I hate God now. Or all variations thereof."
Well, yeah? Entertainment? I'm going to go scroll up and check that… Gimme a sec… Oh here we go. Uh, so, minor chance this might wipe your mind completely clean a la Lockhart… but we can fix that so it's all good!
"Wait, what?"
"Seriously. Die horribly."
K, much love, buh-bye, OBLIVIATE!
"-Gah! WHY. GODDAMNIT, THIS HURTS, AND WHY BLUE NOW, WHY NOT PURPLE AGAIN?!"
I felt someone poking me. "He's not physically injured Headmaster Ozpin. This happened last time too, he was complaining about his senses being all fuzzy when I woke him up."
"I… see." Ozpin's voice came from somewhere above and to the left of me. "I am sure he will be with us once he recovers. An explanation for why I had a literal god of death knocking on my window, twice, please?"
Coco's voice drifted over me as I struggled to remember how to, ya know, move. "That disturbance you sent us to investigate with Professor-" A cough from nearby "-Doctor Oobleck kind of ate us. And spat us out in another dimension where we fought a zombie with impressive grave-wielding skills first thing."
"Zombie?!" Yatsuhashi's voice laced with, normally unusual but usual for the recent period of time, panic piped up.
"Calm yourself Mr. Daichi, there are no zombies in our world." I struggled to sit up, finally getting my senses in… somewhat normal order, as Oobleck spoke up. "And while the students and Mister Orion ended up in that situation, I ended up in Shinigami-sama's office."
"As Team CFVY is all present and accounted for, I take it that the 'grave-wielding'... undead either proved no hardship or not actually an opponent?"
"Ow… Kind of both Oz. We did take him down, with the help of some locals, but then we found out after fighting the mad scientist that reincarnated him that he wasn't a real enemy." I spoke up, carefully staggering to my feet. "Fuck, I hate interdimensional travel."
Ozpin tapped his cane on the ground once, examining me from head to toe before extending a hand holding a spiky crystal soul stone. "How so?"
I carefully took the rock from him, judging it's weight in my hand. "The first part? Because it was apparently a really hardcore remedial class for the locals. The second part? Because I have extrasensory abilities that apparently heavily screw up the mind. Now then, I think I can get her attention this way…" So saying, with my last sentence I pulsed my Aura at the rock.
A flash of blue-purple-red at my side, and Fiona whacked me upside the head. "...for the record, I don't know why…. But I'm annoyed with you."
I cringed slightly from the blow. "Ow, fuck! The hell Fiona, I didn't do anything to you!"
"Yes and no." Said dead woman replied stoutly. "I can't recall, but I know."
"Tch, stupid half-demon shenanigan bullshit…" I muttered under my breath, well-aware that she could hear me and not caring. "Anyway, Fiona? Meet Ozpin. Ozpin, meet Fiona. Yay."
"Staff Sergeant Fiona Hanson. Formerly of the First Engineering Company, Five hundred Fifty Fifth Battalion." She eyed the silver-haired Headmaster of Beacon. "Deceased, unfortunately."
"I heard." Ozpin replied calmly, gripping his cane firmly. "And that you are partially demonic."
"Short of a long story, dealt with a demon via Death God and got compressed with it."
"Do you have any desire to eat anyone in this room?"
Fiona pulled a very disgusted expression at him. "Hell no."
"...very well. Continue, please. I would very much like to know why it took you all so long to return or get word back that you weren't in any immediate danger."
"I'm sorry, scrolls don't work too well across dimensions, you know that damnit!" I grumbled at the Headmaster. "Anyway… The only person with any sort of travel or communication over dimensions is Reaper Man, at least in that dimension, and it wasn't exactly… precise."
"Technically, now that I'm here, that will no longer be an issue as long as both parties have a fragment of my soul." Fiona chipped in blandly. "I can cross dimensions as long as I know where I'm going. Apparently."
"Your soul is Multiverse GPS now?" I commented idly, throwing the rock into air and catching it a few times. "That's… Actually, that's kind of cool."
"I'm literally a self-homing beacon. Yes. It's how I do the hirashin at all."
"I thought that was because Minato hacked spacetime with seals?"
The dead woman shrugged. "It gives me a template. And after three months of nothing to do? I deconstructed it. Natsumi was a seal master herself, she merely didn't do spacetime due to it being Minato-kun's and Kushina-chan's specialities. I know a shit ton of sealing scripts."
I pondered that. "I wonder if we can mix weapons engineering with sealing…"
"Hold." The Headmaster's cane came up to poke both me and Fiona in the chest. "Stop. Discuss on your own time. Report now."
I shifted back a little to be out of reach of the cane (OF DOOM) and returned my attention to the local variant of the Wizard of Oz. "Right. Yeah. So, It took time for Reaper Man to find… here, you? Generally. So, in the meantime, Team CFVY took classes at the school the god was headmaster of, Oobleck helped teach, and I… did a lot of stuff that I will tell you about later. Preferably with children not here."
An indignant "Hey!" came from the two more vocal members of Team CFVY, before Oobleck spoke up. "Indeed! I have their assignments here!"
Coco was aghast. "Why do you still have those? I thought you were kidding when you said you'd grade them!"
"Hey. I assigned you those." Fiona interjected pointedly. "I knew you didn't come to Death City to learn to wield a demon weapon or become a meister. I assigned you shit that would've been relevant anywhere. Are you saying you did less than your best on work a teacher assigned you to do for your benefit?"
Fox's mutter of "Wouldn't be the first time…" was only heard by me, Velvet, and…
"MISS ADEL. I am going to give you make up work." The partially demonic woman informed the fashionista pleasantly. "And I'm going to grade it. To shinobi standards."
"Sucks to be you Coco." I commented idly. "Shinobi standards are harsh."
Ozpin coughed pointedly. "Miss Adel, do please ensure your Team report is handed in on time as well. Please."
I could practically hear the blood rushing away from Coco's face. "Team…. Report…?"
Professor Oobleck spoke up. "Why yes! It is expected of all Hunters and Huntresses to write a detailed report of anything they may encounter in the field, along with the measures taken to deal with the situations that may arise and opinions on anything they may have observed. This is especially true for mission leaders! I too shall be writing one to submit! It is quite easy, as long as you took proper notes during the entire experience."
I chuckled. "What, didn't you write anything down Coco? Hell, I even took notes. I'll be getting you my own report whenever I can consolidate everything into one thing, Ozpin." I remarked to the Headmaster who had briefly employed me. "Did you want the audio files in the report, or just as a separate thing in the folder?"
"I can write one, but I don't have anything digital on me, if you'd like an outsider's perspective." Fiona offered evilly. "I was a former military non-commissioned officer and a shinobi elite jonin who led a team of less experienced ninja until they achieved a higher rank and a leader of a black ops outfit for a surprisingly large military of shinobi."
Ozpin studied the dead woman thoughtfully. "...yes, I believe I would appreciate that, Sergeant Hanson."
Coco spoke up, almost yelling. "Why the hell did you all take notes the entire experience?! Specifically, WHAT THE HELL ORION! Audio files?"
I shrugged. "I get audio and video clips all the time of the random crap I encounter. Tends to be very useful after the fact. And Coco? I'm a bookstore clerk. Literally 80% of my job is paperwork. That, mixed with the extensive note-taking I do for my research in my spare time?"
"All militaries, mercenary outfits, governments, and even schools all run on reports." Tacked on Fiona in a patiently lecturing tone. "How is anyone else supposed to know what you dealt with while on a patrol if they were sent out right after you got in? If they can't talk to you personally… they have to read a report of what they're getting into. The team leader is the best person to write those."
"Ooook, so, we're just going to take Coco… and uh… Help her write that. Probably use the library. We'll just be going now if that's ok?" Fox spoke up and asked, moving to grab his team leader's shoulder. Said team leader was ghostly white and seemed to be mumbling under her breath in near-panic and depression.
Ozpin merely waited for the four of them to shut his office door behind them. "Now then. Do I need to send out Doctor Oobleck as well?"
I shrugged. "Nah, he's aware. So, hey, Ozpin, you remember how you accused me of being psychotic, oh, I don't know, about a month ago?"
"As I did it, I can recall the incident clearly, yes."
"So, yeah, hey, you were actually right it turns out. Unfortunately. I got worse over there. Then I got better. Oh, and my blood is black now. Kind of creepy." I idly rambled on, just stating things as if I was talking about the weather.
"...delightful." Ozpin stated flatly. "This will be in your report, yes? I can certainly ensure parts of it are not widely distributed, but as this occurred near my students I would like the full details."
"Huh, so that's why files get redacted…" I muttered under my breath, before raising my voice. "And yeah, it will be. Mostly. I was kind of out of it for a time period… Fiona or Oobleck can tell you what happened when I got worse better than I can, as an unbiased point of view. Slash, I can't remember a short time period when I got worse. Oh, and I wasn't near your students until I was better, so hey, at least there's that?"
"As I was assigned to be his minder when not teaching, I can confirm that." Fiona chipped in.
Ozpin nodded sharply. "I expect to see that in your report then as well. Is there anything else I should know immediately?"
I pondered that. "Uhm… I can hit people with my soul? Kind of. I'll need to practice whatever the hell Stein was doing… And I can probably teach that? Would be useful, it tends to bypass armor and such and just ruin internal organs, and considering many Grimm tend to be highly resilient to damage…"
"Um… I'm sort of sure I might be able to teach a class on sealing?" Tacked on the dead woman. "Possibly. I'm going to experiment with Orion first, but it's possible wards, seals, and barriers might be do-able."
"And explosives… Wait, didn't seals use blood?" I commented. "Oh, and your students need more experience for fighting human opponents. You can see in their movements and general strategies that they are more used to fighting monsters than humans."
"Seals in the Naruto-verse required the energy, or more specifically chakra, in blood. Natsumi used blood in her seals, yes. However… I… might… have stolen a bit of the Dust you gave Stein… and experimented with that."
"Oh. Ok then. Cause I will admit, my first thought was my blood in a seal, and I see that ending very badly. For all involved. Uhm… I think that's it for immediate report Headmaster. Unless you needed us for something else?" I asked of the man who was signing my most recent paycheck.
"...I will approve or deny your hazard pay based on the reports I get." Ozpin informed me drolly. "So no, I require nothing else until I know more of what went on in immediate detail."
"Alright cool. In that case, I'm going home, introducing Fiona to my roommates, and probably going to get punched in the face by Yang. Or hugged. I think the latter is more likely, considering how long I was gone. Thankfully."
AN: Welp, 23k+ words later, and we are out of Soul Eater! Finally. My bad. I didn't expect it to be this long of a trip… I blame Vixy.
Nope, all your fault. I knew it would get this long, I've done a crossover with canon before in Pawprints.
Point. Anywho, yeah, this is the longest chapter I have written for An Odd Turn so far… though not really, cause a good half was Vixy, so I more like wrote about… 11k? Ish. So…
...are you blaming me for how long it is, or how long it took? I'm confused.
Nope, just giving you credit where it's due!
That's the same thing as blame, just more positive.
Eh. Anyway, key points! *totally not moving along quickly*
Fiona and Orion's discourses are actually fairly typical for the both of us. We get into some strange topics…
Yeah, that. We bounce off each other really well. Which is why Vixy has an LoM fic planned… plus we both love that game. Like so much.
I have no plans on posting it until I'm finished with both RR and one of the older fics I've been ignoring in favor of other things.
Like this. And before y'all bitch at me for distracting her from RR… I'm not actually. She gets a lot done there even if I am bugging her constantly to cowrite Fiona's parts.
Erm… I think we're off-topic again, but fun fact I once wrote three chapters of Deja vu in a week? That was thirty thousand words together. I write fast.
Yeah… We actually do write a fuck-ton when we can coordinate and write together. Our PM log on is 100k+ words. We've talked to each other for about a year now. Anyway…
Chrona: … Yeah, I feel really sorry for purple dome. So rescued. And healing process started. And will probably be adopted by Marie. Or Natsumi, if that doesn't happen and she meets Chrona.
I don't think so, Marie is pretty much the only support Chrona will feel safe with. Natsumi coming in late to the party would just make him/her/it even more confused and not-happy.
So, Marie is going to end up adopting Chrona. Cause I'm not a total dick, and I have a heart. Also, for those wondering why we never specify Chrona's gender? Well… That's because there is no official gender. Medusa was twisted.
Not sure why you paused, I've nothing good to say about that one.
Mmm, anyway…
Orion's insanity: … I will freely admit, this was not planned, this was merely consequences of my actions.
That looped a few times, and you had fun with.
… I take inspiration from Old Man Henderson. Moving on. So, yeah, he got worse. Fairly. But because Marie has Madness healing powers, he got better. And Fiona got to play with a sword!
...you're never letting that one go, are you?
Did you expect me to? It was kind of adorable how she immediately proclaimed it awesome.
It is awesome. Impractical as hell without Sephiroth's height, but still awesome.
Eh… I think it's mitigated because it's wielded by the world's BIGGEST Momma's Boy…
To be fair, he had a dick father. I'd be a momma's kid too with HOJO as the only other option.
Stepfather, Vincent was a badass even though he never got to play father. Anyway, next part… That I'm going to go see what else deserves comment while Vixy replies to the Vincent thing…
Sephiroth never connected Vincent with the idea of father, Hojo-hobo cornered that long before his bio-dad could peel himself out of a box. And also… a box. Was all that kept Vincent from going to his kid's rescue during his childhood. Seriously?
TO BE FAIR… It was more-so the, ya know, 4 DIFFERENT DEMONS, ONE OF WHICH IS THE HERALD OF THE END TIMES, Hojo dickbag implanted in him at the same time. Because he shot him and then decided why the fuck not. Hate that asshole. Anyway.
Orion knowing Deja Vu: Before ya'll bitch… Vixy finished Deja Vu before I ever posted this, and a fair bit of Pawprints was also up. Deja Vu is one of my outright favorite fics, ever, and Vixy is just one of my favorite authors. Which is part of why I got uber excited she agreed to help writing with me for… well, honestly, this fic and the future of this fic. And that she lent me Fiona.
...you know, Deja vu started because I only kept coming across SI stories that were a work in progress and never seemed to get beyond the childhood years? Just saying… frustration, yay…
And then I asked her for advice… and then we discussed how Fiona never really got closure or any real resolution… And then this happened. Side note, I feel like Vixy is one of the top SI writers. … "This Bites" by Xomniac/Cross Brain is also high up there.
Hmm… well, I know what I'm reading next.
Yeah, I kind of point her at some of my favorite fanfics… and she ends up loving them also. Woot! INSPIRATIONAL. But yeah. Orion knows Deja Vu. Really well. And Pawprints, up to the shinobi file covered in black ink.
...poor, poor Inoichi.
I'm sorry, the guy named his daughter "pig", he had that coming.
A lot of Oriental names translated to English sound weird. Natsumi is literally 'Summer Beauty'.
That at least made sense! WHY WOULD YOU NAME YOUR BABY GIRL "PIG".
...I have no idea. I just went with canon names, after all.
And almost had the most one-sided fight ever in Pawprints when Natsumi met what's her name… were you ever tempted to have that fight happen?
Yes, very much so. Seriously think about why some people did certain things in canon and you can draw a lot of really bad conclusions. Baselessly, but still…
It's kind of depressing that the efforts of one person, regardless of how skilled they may be, fixed 90% OF CANON. Like… damn people. If all it took was that, why did you suck so hard? *coughSasorideathbullshitcough*
Because Kimi-troll is a dick.
Agreed. Yeah, if you didn't realize, we don't like Kishimoto. Naruto was great in concept. HORRIBLE IN EXECUTION. This coming from the guy who has no plot and is essentially writing a realistic crack SI fic?
I wrote a supposedly very good Naruto-fic, and I still think that. I wanted to read about a ninja kid named Naruto, not the second coming of DBZ's Goku.
*cough* As you can see, we agree on a lot too, aside from bouncing off each other. Anywho, last bit.
Fiona's continued presence in An Odd Turn: … I could say stuff, buuuuut… Fiona is Vixy's. And she has more planned for the whole thing with Fiona.
Mostly due to end-canon bullshit, I'm kind of forced to in order to solve or even address the Rabbit Moon Goddess of 'WTF'.
BEEYOTCH. Just… why? Fuck you Kishimoto. I don't care if it gives me an excuse to kidnap Fiona to my fic, fuck you and your general fuckery of storytelling.
So… yeah. There's a method to the madness. Or Madness. Or just… one of us has a plan. Apparently the other is just taking advantage. Guess which is which.
In my defense, I get inspiration for this fic every waking minute of my life. And most sleeping minutes.
...how is that a defense?
No clue. Anyway! I can't think of anything else to address... Vixy?
It's four in the morning for me. I'm brain dead.
*checks time* Oh… my bad… so, yeah, that's a thing. I work evening shifts, so coordinating with poor Vixy is… difficult. I apologize profusely to her lots for it, we get a little carried away… anywho… I'm going to go reply to your peeps reviews from last chapter while Vixy says bye and then goes to collapse in her bed. Fuck it, no, I'll do that tomorrow- LATER this morning, it's 1am here for me.
...eh, too tired to be witty. Night ya'll.
Fun fact? Vixy can't spell when braindead. Thank god for spell check… and co-writing. Mostly spell check though. So…
...says the one that has as many spelling errors as I do?
Read! Review! And screw you Vixy, at least I spell sergeant right! How do you mess that up, it's your SI's rank!
Because there's several different versions to spell it with, and they're all wrong if you look at them sideways. Sergeant, sargent, so on so forth.
*coughs* So… yes. READ! REVIEW! DO NOT MAKE FUN OF FIONA, SHE'LL HAUNT YOU!
...do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars...
