I'm currently working within the Sword Art Online fandom atm, but I wanted to produce one more chapter even if it's just one regarding their past to update you guys on why it hasn't been updated.
I can't remember if I ever mentioned this, but Bound by Destiny started as the originating concept for a original book I wanted to write and publish. So I turned the concept and base draft into a fanfiction idea and Love Live fit the general personalities for the characters in the story so once I got the inspiration, I began it. I'm rambling a bit now so I'll wrap it up xD
Basically, Bound by Destiny's on hiatus because the actual original book "Defying Destiny: Refusing Death" is in it's third draft state. Which contains Chapters 1 to 8ish with a slew of new scenes and other things. So it's difficult to write the next part of the concept drafts (Bound by Destiny) while I'm actually working with the real book xD
I fully intend to continue Bound by Destiny and nothing will happen to it here as it contains only most of the events in the story and nothing with the characters, detailed stuff, etc. It'll be continued once I finish this first book and continue writing the concept drafts ^^
Anyway, enough of me rambling, meet the intermission chapter: Moonlit Syndrome a Past Production!
I'm currently working within the Sword Art Online fandom atm, but I wanted to produce one more chapter even if it's just one regarding their past to update you guys on why it hasn't been updated.
I can't remember if I ever mentioned this, but Bound by Destiny started as the originating concept for a original book I wanted to write and publish. So I turned the concept and base draft into a fanfiction idea and Love Live fit the general personalities for the characters in the story so once I got the inspiration, I began it. I'm rambling a bit now so I'll wrap it up xD
Basically, Bound by Destiny's on hiatus because the actual original book "Defying Our Destiny: Refusing Death" is in it's third draft state. Which contains Chapters 1 to 8ish with a slew of new scenes and other things. So it's difficult to write the next part of the concept drafts (Bound by Destiny) while I'm actually working with the real book xD
I fully intend to continue Bound by Destiny and nothing will happen to it here as it contains only most of the events in the story and nothing with the characters, detailed stuff, etc. (plus everyone loves it and I can't break people's heart that way) It'll be continued once I finish this first book and continue writing the concept drafts, and who knows, I might even make some little clips and snippets of the book cast and or the Love Live set at various points within the story. ^^
Anyway, enough of me rambling, meet the intermission chapter: Moonlit Syndrome a Past Production!
Title: Intermission: Moonlit Syndrome a Past Production
Summary: Eli, a beta werewolf and Umi, an alpha who just came back from a stressful 'vacation' meet in person and sparks fly.
Wait... how did Kotori end up trapped in between?
"I need a vacation," Umi, a nineteen-year-old alpha mumbled softly to themself as they scowled. Staring down at the digital timer and gyro sensor on their lap. Being tied to a chair with silver rope and having a bomb placed on their lap wasn't something they necessarily enjoyed. If anything, it was sloppy of the enemy to do, not to mention it just gave them a stress headache. Honestly, they had had enough stress this year alone for a lifetime, and yet here they were, facing even more. Well, as morbid as the thought was, at least it was them and Kotori in danger. Umi didn't know if they would've survived having more instances where their eight-year-old daughter Maki was the one in danger.
Seriously, they needed a vacation, even if it was just a week, a time frame where they could just relax and sleep. A vacation from being a bodyguard.
Oh right, they just came back from one now, didn't they?
Except it wasn't peaceful, they hadn't gotten much sleep, and now them, and especially Kotori, were both wound up like coiled springs.
They was never going back there, ever. Not for the first time, but Umi found themself noting that if the man wasn't already dead, they would've killed him, and not quickly.
The first real vacation they had in seven years and their mate and child got attacked. Their life really was an endless cycle of working twenty-four-seven.
Umi subtly shook their head to clear it and redirect their focus. After all, like always, they was working, and this time it wasn't just the usual, 'guard Kotori.'
Kotori was fine, or at least as far as Umi knew the angel was fine, it just happened that this was a very delicate situation. After all, Kotori wasn't the only hostage here, since most of the supernatural leaders were there too, so Umi had to be careful with what they did. Werewolf superspeed could only go so fast and outside of her magic, Kotori's abilities were secret from the public. Still, Umi knew Kotori could handle herself, especially now, for long enough for Umi to get to her. How they was going to get there exactly they didn't know.
Whatever, they needed to take care of the bomb first.
Narrowing their eyes and tuning out the human guards blubbering nearby, Umi held very still, holding their lower body as still as possible before with one sharp movement, they twisted their upper body. The metal back of the chair groaned at it's anchor points connecting it to the base and with one more jerk, the welds in the chair snapped apart.
The loud sound caused the humans to whimper and Umi couldn't help but scowl at the bunch of them. Normally they had no problems with humans, in fact they weren't half bad creature-wise, but when they was in a room with a bomb on their lap and all of the human guards in the building tied up near their, they couldn't stand them.
Hopefully Honoka had had better luck getting ahold of their stun guns and something to break the rope binding Umi's wrists.
With the back of the chair separate from the bottom, Umi leaned over, leaning as low as they could with their mouth semi near the device. The bomb itself wasn't actually made that well, it was just C4 armed with a handful of braided wires and of course, the deadman switch Umi couldn't let go of without setting off all of the other explosives in the building.
Umi had to give them credit, hitting them with a mustard gas grenade with silver powder was pretty smart, it had done it's job, making Umi and the other werewolf guards within range go down coughing blood from the silver frying the interiors of their lungs and passing out. But this bomb? It was childs play so long as they could actually disarm it.
The other werewolves hadn't gotten up yet, which didn't surprise Umi, not with how raspy their own breathing was and how they had woken up to throwing up blood.
Silver didn't agree with werewolves.
Umi silently counted the wires, there were eight in total, braided together in groups of two, so… they only needed to cut one wire, they just had to miss the wire it was braided together with.
Their canines extended and Umi leaned to left before they bared their teeth, giving them a better angle on using the sharp tip of one of their canines to cut the wire.
Only experience kept Umi from being all that tense about cutting the wire, having been put in this situation both real and simulated many times, it mainly to prepare them for situations like this.
The wire cut, and immediately the timer stopped and shut down. So Umi leaned all the way over and slit the wire just below their knees, even if it stung, the silver reacting to the saliva on their canines and quickly eating at a little of the enamel.
Great, Umi retracted their canines and stood up, aware that the bomb was now useless. they carefully shut their mouth and instantly inwardly reeled, the remaining silver on their canines causing their mouth to bleed as it reacted to the rest of the traces of venom in their saliva. Outwardly they just flinched and spit out a bit of blue tained blood.
Right, they'd leave the explosive here for Tsubasa and they'd go for Kotori and the others.
Umi, with their arms still bound, made their way over to one of the bound werewolves. Before they knelt down and like with their own knees, they split the silver rope binding their knees with their canines. "Kira-san, they rather harshly shoved the werewolf in an attempt to quickly get her up and snarled at her in wolfish, "wake up."
Tsubasa's green eyes instantly flickered open and she lifted her head, though Umi took a quick step to the left and the brunette threw up, the blood making Umi's nose sting with the amount of copper in the air. "Fuck," Tsubasa snarled, coughing, and Umi didn't blame her, not when they had had the same reaction.
The brunette spit out more blood before she gave Umi a scowl that matched Umi's, "why're you still here, dumb-ass?" Dealing with silver always grated on Tsubasa's nerves.
"Welcome back to you too," Umi grunted back, preferring to speak in wolfish when their mouth was bleeding and might as well be filled with blood. "I need you to make sure nobody tries to use that bomb. It's disarmed, but who knows if there's a mole within the group of us all."
"Got it, where's Kosuka-san?" Tsubasa asked, as sharp minded as usual, though it wasn't exactly hard to miss that the ginger was missing.
"I don't know at the moment," blood bubbled up at Umi's lips at the growl. "I will find her, I already woke her up and set her out to find a knife or something sharp to cut everyone's ropes."
"Alright, I'll defend here, you send Kosuka-san here when you find her, good luck Sonoda-san."
At Tsubasa's agreement, Umi was already in motion, slipping through the open door and sprinting down the hall.
Kotori? Honoka? The alpha reached out to the ginger and ash-blonde telepathically, testing for any kind of jammer, which wasn't common, but it did happen here and there.
There was no response.
Umi scowled harder. they was getting a vacation after this.
Umi was in the middle of seizing a werewolf by the back of the shirt, using their teeth, and throwing him over the edge of the fencing barring people from falling from the edge of the fancy building's third floor, when a familiar voice popped up.
"Sonoda-san!"
It was Honoka. She was running toward them.
Umi hastily finished the action of throwing the werewolf over the balcony and dug their heels into the ground when they were yanked off balance by the werewolf's grip on their long blue hair. The impact of their chest hitting the metal made them instantly start coughing. Damnit! they rarely needed help, but now would be a good time. "Kosuka, cut it! Now!"
Honoka didn't hesitate. Umi heard the sound of a window breaking before after a second the extra weight on them vanished, taking a lot of their blue hair with them.
Whatever, it would grow back.
"Did you find anything?" Umi spoke briskly to the ginger who used the shard of glass to slice through the ropes binding their hands together behind them, just in time for Umi to seize the metal with their free hand and throw it toward the approaching werewolf behind Honoka with enough force that it sent the creature flying.
"Minami-sama's upstairs, they have guns with silver bullets, there's fifteen werewolves up there, I couldn't find anything but I swiped a couple of their guns off of them, I disabled the bombs, and apparently I'm using glass to cut ropes." Honoka rattled off and Umi made a note to have Kotori heal her later after noticing the blood over her abdomen and how the ginger wasn't really using her arm at the moment.
Umi absorbed the rattled off information and shucked their blazer, "Kira-san needs you back downstairs to free the rest of the-
Can someone hear me?! A girl's voice pierced through Umi's head with the force of a spear.
What the hell?
Yes, Umi quickly responded even as they exchanged looks with Honoka who looked confused herself, and took the gun Honoka offered them. What is it?
My name's Arisa Ayase-
I'm sorry, but I don't have time for introductions, Umi told the voice as they checked the gun in their hands, slid the magazine into place and turned the safety off. State what your business is, I have limited time.
If you're inside the building with all of those officials then you need to hurry!
Umi narrowed their eyes suspiciously, what do you mean?
My sister's lost her mind! She-
Umi couldn't hear the rest of the sentence over the sound of a gunshot hitting their ears and a cry that Umi could recognize miles away.
By the way Honoka's face turned white, she heard it too.
Kotori had been shot before, once, back as a kid when her father was killed, but she hardly remembered it hurting like this. Her knees buckled, throwing the sun-angel to her hands and knees while her vision blurred and it hit her.
Silver.
They had been using silver since they gassed out the meeting and even Umi had gone down, coughing up blood and wheezing. At the time Kotori's magic had protected her, but her reserves were drained, after all, lowering the sun, especially lowering the sun early and faster than it was supposed to be, cost a amount of magic that Kotori barely had after putting high intensity wards on everyone in the room.
This time her wards had failed, unable to take the force of the bullet when she had almost no magic left and the magic she did have left was being spread out among the other members besides the one person she hadn't been able to shield. Who was the person she pulled behind her to protect them from having the trigger pulled on them.
Umi had warned her before that silver was going to be able to hurt her, but she hadn't believed that it would be as bad as they had described.
Boy was she wrong.
Kotori's belly felt like it was literally on fire, the silver reacting to the high amount of venom in the area. Judging by the spot it was radiating from, it had hit a venom gland.
She weakly tried to press one of her hands against the spot, but she didn't have the strength to do it very well.
"Are you crazy?!" Kotori heard vaguely through her fuzzy senses. "You just shot a sun-angel!"
"I didn't mean to! She got in the way!"
A liquid tickled out of Kotori's nose, and red dripped down onto the floor.
Drip.
Drip.
"That doesn't matter! You've lost your mind! Who do you think is going to heal your sister now?!"
Drip.
Kotori felt woozy, dizzy and blurry from pain, her vision drifting in and out of focus while she dimly tried to stay awake. Even though she knew exactly what was happening to her, having had to watch Umi go through the same thing.
Silver poisoning.
Gunshots sounded nearby as Kotori fell further, keeling to one side and trying to stay propped up on her arm. She needed to protect the others, they… they didn't… she...
Ummi...
Like there was an internal compass pointing them where Kotori was, which happened a lot actually, Umi finally reached the room their brain demanded she was in and without slowing down, Umi crashed through the door.
Time virtually froze as Umi's amber eyes took in the situation, mainly how Kotori was on the floor in a nerve wracking large pool of her own blood.
Kotori's golden eyes vaguely connected with Umi's before they rolled back and Kotori collapsed, lying on the floor
they saw red.
Umi had one of the werewolves on the ground and the other pressed against the wall with their arm wrenched up behind their back within the span of just under a second. They vaguely heard Honoka's voice telling the other officials' children to hurry and come with her, but they were more focused on the blonde they had pinned. "What did you shoot her with!" Umi growled at the werewolf in their ear, the sound vibrating their throat and entire chest.
"She wasn't supposed to be hurt," The blonde snapped back, but it wasn't good enough for Umi.
"WHAT DID YOU SHOOT HER WITH!" The alpha howled, roaring the words in the other werewolf's ear in a loud but lower tone, dropping the pitch of their voice and thereby forcing the werewolf to respond.
"S-Silver!" The blonde then snarled at them, "get off me!"
Umi's blood froze as the dots connected.
Kotori had silver poisoning.
they needed to move, now.
Umi! Honoka finally got through the telepathy. What happened to Kotori?
Silver poisoning, I'm getting the antidote from this asshole, Umi spat back, take care of everything else.
"Give me your antidote, now," Umi growled threateningly at the blonde with an alpha command and pushed the blonde further into the wall, "do it the first time or I will kill you for harming her."
The blonde winced at the pressure, no doubt dislocating her shoulder, but obediently fumbled to get the device out of her pocket even as she snarled at them, obviously feeling trapped. "Why do you need it? She's not a werewolf!"
"You and I are going to have a very special conversation after this," Umi growled, "now shut up and stay there!" Umi shoved her with the command before they released her, not giving her a choice in not listening, not when they didn't have time for this.
They quickly raced over to Kotori and rolled her onto her back, who was white as a sheet in her unconscious state from the blood pooling around them.
She had never looked so small and helpless…
It looked like she had gotten shot in the stomach, and if Umi removed the bullet then the angel was going to lose more than just blood, she was going to lose a big chunk of what little venom she had circulating through her blood. Still, they needed to get the bullet out to allow the angel's body to stop bleeding.
Umi silently apologized to their mate before they held a hand over the injury sight and uttered a spell in greek.
Kotori cried, the angel screaming and being jolted being forced back into consciousness by the sheer pain of Umi using a summon spell to pull the bullet out of her abdomen. The angel's golden eyes were unfocused, flicking to one side like a dizzy dog, and tears of pain trickled down her face.
Umi's heart squeezed.
"Sssh, sssh," Umi hushed her, trying to soothe her while the spell worked and Kotori coughed and spluttered, blood bubbling up at her pink lips. Though Umi could tell when the bullet dislodged, because immediately, the red under her palm became infused with neon green and the liquid spilled out from under Umi's hand, the liquid making her palm tingle and go numb. A side effect of Kotori's venom.
Metal made contact with Umi's palm and they hastily rattled off a healing spell with the bullet held in her clenched hand.
All they could do was hope that it would be enough.
