As The Fox
By: Aviantei
[Twelve Shots of Summer: Eleventh Hour 1/12]
[Parameters: "Last Time" & "Final Entry"]
Game One
"Some animals are cunning and evil-disposed, as the fox; others, as the dog, are fierce, friendly, and fawning. Some are gentle and easily tamed, as the elephant; some are susceptible of shame, and watchful, as the goose. Some are jealous and fond of ornament, as the peacock."
— Aristotle
It's the rush of the wind that feels best, Nepuro thinks. Something about it appeals to him, with his hair whipping past and the way his stomach lurches as he takes a leap off a particularly high building, from one scaffolding to another. Where others in his free runner group will hesitate before crossing gaps, Nepuro sprints forward, hurls himself across the distance with nothing but his heart in his throat and meters-long drops below him and lands on the other side to cheers erupting behind him, the sting of scraped palms not stopping him from forming his hands into fists and punching towards the skies.
He'd fallen in love with parkour the moment he saw it, some random video his friend shoved at him while everyone was half-tipsy in an izakaya. The flips, the acrobatics of it—it looked cool, and it looked fun. There were grins on the participant's faces, and, while in the morning when he was sober he knew the video had been nothing but a compilation of successes, it was still proof those things were possible, and so he looked around online and found some people. He'd been racing through the Tōkyō streets two days later, and he'd fractured his arm within a week, stumbling over his own feet and landing just wrong against the wall he'd meant to go up.
That moment had hooked him even harder, stronger than any fish on a line.
Within a year, he'd gotten rather good at it, he liked to think. The being good bit was secondary, no more a means to an end to get to the adrenaline rush on the other side than anything else, but it had come with practice. Free-running was not risk free, and that was how Nepuro liked it. A way better way to get his thrills than shoving some needle in his arm or what have you.
And there's the rush of wind again, the plummeting of his stomach one late night as Nepuro goes for a run to burn off steam, and he doesn't process that he'd misjudged his jump until he catches sight of his reflection in a window of the building he meant to land on top of instead.
Ah, fuck, he thinks, wondering if he'll wake up in a hospital again or if he's not going to wake up again at all.
There are worse ways to go than doing something you love.
Nepuro does wake up, but it's not in a hospital. It's not even in a puddle of blood on the pavement. There is no pain. His head is clear. He peels himself to his feet, pats his body, a well-practiced survey to know the state of himself, and comes up with nothing, not even the bruising on his knees he'd gotten from crashing onto the ground, hard, not even three days ago. The slide had torn extra scrapes into his already ripped-up jeans, which he'd worn with pride.
"Hasekitsu Nepuro, age twenty-four."
The voice feels like it's echoing in the space, and it's a no-nonsense alto. Nepuro spins around on quick feet, finds a blonde woman with glasses and a short, gothic-leaning dress over her figure. The expression on her face is what some of his buddies would call "scary, but in a sexy way." The fact that she's looking on him like he's not that far above vermin just adds to the effect, though he can't say that's ever been his thing.
Most other people haven't been his thing, period.
"Fell from four stories up at 11:57 PM, Saturday night. Bled out before anyone could find you." She's reciting the facts without any concern at all, and Nepuro can't help but wonder what the fuck is going on. Everything expect the woman is bright white and blinding, reminding him far too much of the one bad trip he had that kept him from putting anything not food-grade approved in his mouth again. The woman pushes up her glasses. "Making work at the very last minute was not in my schedule for this Game."
Those words don't make any sense at all, but what she said before does. Bled out before anyone could find you. Nepuro laughs, which earns him a glare of displeasure. "What is this? I'm dead?" He can't stop laughing, something like elation stuck in the back of his throat. No matter how much he howls, it doesn't go away. He looks around again, tries to squint further into the blinding white. "Are you a Shinigami? Please don't tell me it's all like this." If death is so sterile, Nepuro's going to lose it.
The woman wavers between professionalism and distaste. Nepuro tends to have that effect on people. "Yes, I'm a Reaper. You are being Processed." So the white space is like purgatory? Okay, he can work with that. Nepuro rocks back and forth on his heels, half-tempted to run off into the distance and see what he can find. "Your Soul has been determined to be worthy enough of joining the Reaper's Game."
"Game? I tend to like games." Adding Reaper's before it sounds threateningly badass, in the best possible way. "Tell me more."
"This is a game to determine if you have the right to return back to life. If you join, you will need to survive seven days in the Under Ground. Each day you will need to complete a Mission. Failure means Erasure. Defeat at the hands of the Noise means Erasure. Survive to the end with a high enough score, and you will be granted life again."
That little detail is pretty much the least of Nepuro's concerns. "When you say 'Erasure'…?"
"Death after death, which there is no coming back from." A much more permanent game over than Nepuro earned by smacking straight into the pavement. A shiver of excitement, not unlike the lurch he gets from a perfect adrenaline rush, races up his spine and sets his brain on fire. "There are more particulars, but that should be enough to make a choice. You are the last Player we need to complete Processing. Now choose."
Nepuro doesn't give a damn about whether or not he's alive. Not in a fatalistic way, but because he's always been much more concerned with the rush of the moment than anything long-term. He'd always been told his thrill-seeking would net him an early grave, and he agreed. He just didn't expect that early grave would also bring with it a whole new set of excitements.
He fixes the woman in a grin, shows off his teeth. "Where do I sign up?"
[Author's Notes]
Me, two years ago: Holy shit I am never doing [Twelve Shots of Summer] in real time again, this sucks.
Me, this year, looking up blearily from where I've been neck deep in my Moriarty the Patriot fic: Oh, fuck is it June already?
In other words, this was written this morning and has not been proofread. Please be kind to me.
Anyways! Welcome! This is going to be a one-shot collection delving into Hasekitsu Nepuro, one of my OCs from my longer multi-chap TWEWY fic, Muse. I originally conceived Nepuro as "an adrenaline junkie that ends up with his Entry Fee just being his right to play the Game over and over." For a while, it's been in the back of my head to go ahead and write some side stories of his various games for [Twelve Shots of Summer], and in a flash of inspiration back in March, I made a rough outline and decided to commit this year! And then, as happens to all fanfic authors, another project sucked me in and I didn't have time to draft any of this in advance, so here we are.
I've committed to going fast and loose with these as character study pieces. I do not have the energy to detail out every Game as much as I did in Muse. I will, however, make references to how that fic makes the background of the Reaper's Game work, in particular Processing, a division concepted by my wonderful friend, Chronic Guardian in his TWEWY fic, Hybrid/Mixed Feelings. In the briefest sense, they are the ones that bring Players into the Reaper's Game, take their Entry Fees and tally up their Point total for revival at the end. Konishi, at this point in the timeline, is Head Processor. Here, in line with the "Last Entry" prompt, she is very disgruntled that Nepuro's late night tumble has caused additional paperwork right before the next round of the Game is to start.
And, yes, prompts! [Twelve Shots of Summer] is a writing community on fanfiction dot net that gives weekly prompts to be completed over twelve weeks or thereabouts! I'll be doing my best to update this collection weekly (please save me) as my entries for this year. Somehow, we've made it to our eleventh year doing this! Go check out the forum of the same name if you're interested in joining/writing with us this summer!
Aaaand I feel like this note has gone on long enough. Next week's prompts will be "Last Breath" and "Final Destination." Please look forward to it!
-Avi
[1 June 2024]