A/N As promised, it's time to start a new story!
Ashikabi of the Center will be a Sekirei (obviously) story centered around the Disciplinary Squad during the events of the Sekirei Plan proper. The story will feature a small flock -four sekirei- and a single ashikabi -the SI/MC/Whatever- as the main characters, with the intention of focusing heavily on Karasuba by virtue of being the only sekirei of the group who has actual backstory and baggage -and kind of a lot of it- but you know what they say about plans and first contact, we'll see where the focus falls as the story develops.
Canon lore will be respected to a point, but don't expect total fidelity. It's been long, my memory is not perfect and I'm not willing to waste hours and hours away double-checking every detail with a wiki that's not really all that trustworthy in the first place. More importantly, I want to tell a story and, if lore gets in the way, I'll happily and eagerly bash it in the head, zip-tie its arms and legs, drive it to some remote cliff and double-tap the back of its head before dumping it's cooling corpse into the ocean.
If that sounded oddly specific to you, don't worry. It probably was.
001 - How to win friends and influence people
It all happened quite abruptly.
If anyone involved was questioned about it, they would all agree that everything happened in a logical way, each step of the process naturally following the previous. It just so happened to end with the Disciplinary Squad losing their Director and potential Ashikabi, that with him being impaled through the chest and into a wall by a clothes tree rack.
Said Disciplinary Squad Director would never argue it was natural and reasonable to hear that a competent-looking woman with an impressive resume was aiming for a spot within MBI, even if her application to directly join the Disciplinary Squad was maybe a bit unorthodox.
Benitsubasa would loudly declare perfectly natural for that overreaching blonde hussy to be immediately shot down by her Natsuo-sama. Even if she herself would've never been so polite about the wording, but his unflinching politeness was simply one more of Natsuo-sama's many, many good points.
Haihane would laugh in the face of anyone surprised by Karasuba's suggestion for the woman to kill their late boss and take his post for herself if she really wanted a job within the disciplinary squad. That is, what else can one expect of Karasuba?
Karasuba herself would find it vaguely amusing but perfectly reasonable for the woman to reach for the coat rack, break the base over her knee and throw the now sharpened shaft at Natsu-chan with impeccable precision and a somewhat remarkable -for a monkey- strength. She would even admit to finding the sight refreshing.
… Alright, maybe there's no one who would've found all the steps reasonable. But all the steps were found reasonable by someone. On the other hand, one Momoko Shimada, mainly known throughout the worlds by her bulletproof poker face and her unreasonable flawlessness, had lost her ability to find anything strange a long, long time ago. So there's that.
Of course, after the mandatory shocked pause so those surprised by the final result can regain their bearings, there's someone in the room who takes offense. With an inarticulated cry of fury and pain, Benitsubasa charges at the interloper, right fist cocked and ready to graft those stupid glasses into the prissy blonde's face via punch surgery. The bitch had just killed Natsuo-sama!
Unfortunately, a sharp pain stabs through her left shoulder before she can reach the bitch and, a mere instant afterwards, her back impacts against the wall with enough force to crack it, stealing her breath and pinning her in place.
"Let me go you crazy bitch!" She yells in blind fury, flailing her arms around in a doomed attempt to hurt something from her awkward position. She's maybe a bit too emotional to remember that there's only one person in the room capable of doing this to her and she's indeed a crazy bitch. "I'll beat her to a bloody pulp!"
It's only after feeling the sharp pain of the blade pinning her in place being twisted around the wound that she regains enough sense to take stock of the situation. Her face pales when she realizes how screwed she's right now, that with the half-glazed eyes and blushed cheeks, prominent on the woman that's keeping her impaled her into the wall in a bizarre reflection of what just happened to her potential Ashikabi.
"You…" She manages after coughing some blood, in an astonished whisper. "You're reacting to the bitch?"
"What can I say?" Karasuba grins, shrugging and slowly twisting the blade in her hands a bit further. "Never believed in Yume's 'fated one' tripe, but here we are."
Truly, a psycho bitch Ashikabi for the psycho bitch Sekirei, it all rounds up. Benitsubasa really would like to make a sarcastic comment, but the mind-numbing pain from her shoulder is distracting her a bit from any potential witty comebacks. She's also losing a lot of blood and starting to feel lightheaded.
She casts a glance around, half to distract herself from the pain and half to avoid the disturbing visage of a sexually excited Karasuba. She promptly wishes she hadn't. For one, Haihane is exhibiting the same symptoms -that is, reacting to the turbo psycho bitch Ashikabi- for another, said turbo psycho bitch Ashikabi not only looks perfectly at home with the situation, but is wielding the pieces of coat hanger she didn't throw, the splintered pointy ends casually aimed at the livers of the two active threats in the room.
For such a professional looking and well-dressed whore, the bitch sure feels at home in a fight. For some reason, that just pisses Benitsubasa off even more. The corners of her eyes are darkening though, and knowing Karasuba, she's pretty sure she'll soon be following Natsuo-sama.
"Well I hope you both..." There's a brief moment of hesitation, but spite wins out in the end and she uses her last breath to curse them both. "Kill off each other."
"Oh, Beni-chan really says the sweetest things."
"Indeed." The woman comments idly, the aim of her makeshift stakes not even wavering while she arches a questioning eyebrow. "She doesn't look dead to me."
"Terminated." Karasuba answers cheerfully, finally recovering her sword and flicking the blood away before sheathing it again, all the menace draining from her demeanor like it had never been there. "A whole lot of the same. The coats should be able to wake her up at some point in the future, but her memories are done for."
"... Fascinating." With that, the woman finally leaves her makeshift stakes on the table, focusing on fixing her glasses and slightly ruffled suit, apparently seeing nothing strange in two possibly inhuman females looking at her like a piece of meat after quasi-killing someone that, going by their uniforms, was a teammate. "So… Who should I drop my application with?"
"Leave it with me, Momo-chan." Karasuba smiles sharply, appreciating the way the woman doesn't shy away from the visage. "I'll make sure it reaches the proper places."
The next time the three of them meet is a week later, when Karasuba and Haihane are summoned to the office of their recently deceased director, only to find one Momoko Shimada sitting on his old desk.
"I see you didn't have the bloodstains removed from the wall." Karasuba comments idly, this development was a matter of fact so, while very much welcome, she's not going to make a big deal out of it. "Intimidatory purposes?"
"Nothing says 'you're in trouble' like the blood of the last person who was in trouble still visible on the wall." Momo-chan agrees with a nod. "Had to fight the cleaning crew tooth and nail for them to leave it alone, though."
"They can be a bit overzealous, yes." Karasuba has to hold back a shiver. There is something wrong with the cleaning crew, normal monkey reaction to her blood-soaked visage is not to try and take her clothes off to soak the stains in water. "The Doctor gave you the rundown?"
"You Sekirei are an alien race, overall stronger than baseline humans but suspiciously compatible with them in all respects." Momo-chan recites. "You react to a special brand of humans codenamed Ashikabi with sexual arousal or something pretty damn close, the strength of the reaction depending on some nebulous compatibility criteria nobody so far has been capable of explaining."
She stops here, a small frown of distaste marring her usually emotionless features, as if the very idea of unclear conditions offends her at a personal level.
"That or fate, depending on who you ask." She continues with a shrug. "Independently of the strength of the reaction, you imprint yourselves in the first Ashikabi to have lip to lip contact with you, creating a soul bond that's both absurdly strong and stupidly easy to break." The woman presses on, seemingly giving no second thought to the fact she's just defined the death of either Sekirei or Ashikabi as 'stupidly easy'. "After the bond is established, you feel inclined to please your Ashikabi. But the form that inclination takes depends on each Sekirei's individual personality, which the bond itself does little to nothing to alter."
Momoko leans forward, leaning her chin on her interwoven fingers and reclining her head at just the right angle so the light reflected on her glasses obscures her eyes. Karasuba has to admit the final effect is pretty damn ominous.
"The evil genius posing as clinically insane we have for a boss has concocted a blood sport he calls 'Sekirei Plan', basically a battle royale between Sekirei for a prize that he makes sound grandiose but refuses to give any concrete information about. That and participation will be mandatory, enforced by MBI in general and us in the Disciplinary Squad in particular."
Reached this point, Karasuba's uniform starts feeling uncomfortably hot. That's good, because she wanted to make sure she'd really reacted to Momo-chan the last time and it wasn't just the casual manslaughter turning her on. That's also bad, because she's liking the woman more and more and that makes maintaining control harder by the minute.
"My guess is we're all being played in a convoluted plan designed to take control of either your mothership, the semi-mythical Sekirei #00, some particularly finicky McGuffin with special usage requirements that will be fulfilled along the development of the Plan... or all the above."
"Well, duh." Haihane interrupts with an eye roll, finally speaking for the first time and shrugging carelessly when everyone turns their attention towards her. "I mean, have you met the Doctor?"
"...There's a chance the Plan never reaches fruition too." Momo-chan pressed on after a slightly awkward silence. "Because that's when people will expect things to come to a head. Minaka-san is the one organizing the whole thing and, despite appearances, he's smart enough to make his move at literally any other point." She then sighs and takes off her glasses, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "That's assuming I got all the facts, of course. There's only so much digging around I can do in a week."
Karasuba can't help but reflect how there's a certain resemblance between Momo-chan and… Doctor Takami. The younger woman reminds her in many ways of a murder-happy Takami with a better reign over her temper. And that thought is enough to…
Huh, that's actually a fairly welcome thought. Did Karasuba always have a thing for the grumpy scientist and simply never stopped to consider the possibility?
Not important. It's time for one last test before accepting Momo-chan as her new boss. The Doctor is going to insist they get winged by her at some point anyway, but that's not what this is about. Stepping up to Momo-chan's desk, placing a hand on the handle of her blade and her best predatory grin on her face, Karasuba leans forward to loom over the blonde woman.
"So you don't like the Doctor's plans?" She asks dangerously.
"I don't like them." The woman answers with a firm nod, not a twitch out of place in spite of the killing intent flooding the room.
"And what're you gonna do about it?" Karasuba pushes, leaning further until the two of them are practically face to face, her dangerous grin widening to show dangerously sharp teeth.
"Crash the party, crush his dreams, take control and enjoy his cries of despair over his broken and bleeding body." Momo-chan's grin mirrors Karasuba's and then some. "Lamentations from his women are unlikely to occur, but I'll take cheering instead."
Now, for all that Karasuba doesn't shy away from showing off her bloodlust in public, she's not in the habit of losing control over her emotions. No matter how hot and bothered she's feeling or how much she wants to lick her suddenly dry lips. Still, she never knew humans could sport such fierce grins, nor had she ever before met such beautiful and intense eyes as the pair of yellow orbs staring at her from behind green-framed glasses.
There's a moment when she realizes her emotions are getting the best of her and, before she do anything to reign herself in, she has jumped over the desk to get at the woman, tackling her with enough force to topple the chair and pin her down with her own body to passionately kiss… a wooden ruler?
Karasuba looks up to find an arched brow and vaguely amused yellow eyes. Feeling a bit sheepish at the momentary lapse, she gets off her pretty-much-for-certain Fated One and tries her best not to blush while the woman gets up, running a hand down her dress suit to smoothen any wrinkles.
Karasuba isn't one to be ashamed of her own actions. But then again, she's not one to lose control, either.
"Your reaction is flattering and very much appreciated, but I don't make a habit of forging lifelong relationships with people before the first date." The woman stands back up, making the ruler disappear somewhere. If she's being sarcastic, she's making a wonderful job at hiding it. "I've read your profiles, of course, but that's hardly the same."
"So what then, dinner and the movies?"
"I was thinking Arcade and Diner for Haihane" She answers with a smirk that's more amused than predatory for once. "And for our date something you would find a bit more… exciting."
As happened with Tempered by Fire, explicit content will be cut off this version of the story to comply with the site guidelines. You can check it out in the versions at AO3 or Questionable Questing. The version at Questionable Questing is also four chapters ahead for various reasons, but everything will be posted here in due time. Even if the story ended up discontinued by some reason, I'd still update everything here too on schedule, so don't worry about that.