Atobe encounters Yukimura at the museum, they fall to chatting, and events take a rather sharp left turn.
Yukimura rested his chin on one hand, and lifted his brows. He was, Keigo decided, perfectly well aware of what Keigo wanted to ask and was going to sit there with that attentive expression and watch Keigo squirm while he tried to come up with a courteous way to do it.
Mild chaos and vast snarkiness as many paths cross at a music store.
He’d really never thought a simple trip to the music store would be so harrowing.
During Tezuka’s first year of college, and Ryouma’s second year of high school, Ryouma tracks Tezuka down again and they edge into a relationship not based on the tennis club.
Kunimitsu remembered that it had taken less than a month from the time he started high school to the day Echizen Ryouma had come to find him. He was not, therefore, entirely surprised to see Echizen now, not quite two months into Kunimitsu’s university studies.
Ryouma comes to terms rather abruptly with the reason he’s clinging to Tezuka.
At first, it had been a matter of chance, really.
Tezuka finally loses his battle to stay detached.
Kunimitsu resigned himself to the knowledge that he had just welcomed all the interest and chaos and trouble and thrill that Echizen trailed after him like a too-long scarf into yet another part of his life.
Tezuka and Ryouma achieve some closure.
When Tezuka’s tongue still only flirted with his, Ryouma nipped at it, and then made a pleased sound as Tezuka’s low laugh vibrated down the whole length of his body.
Tezuka and Echizen settle in with each other.
“But, really! I never thought, in a hundred years, Echizen would actually catch him…”
Atobe is rather tired of Tezuka brooding, and decides it’s time for another conversation with Fuji to see if the problem is amenable to a swift kick.
He couldn’t believe Fuji had misread Kunimitsu that badly. No, wait, he could believe it; after all, it wasn’t as though he hadn’t known plenty of intelligent, talented individuals who where, nevertheless, gifted with the people skills of dried seaweed. It was just that he expected this kind of thing from Ryou, not from Fuji.
How Ren reacts to Yoh touching him.
“That was the first place you touched me,” Ren said, voice low.
The world is changing for everyone, and everyone has to find some way to deal with it.
“The land is… refracting. Structures are appearing that aren’t quite like anything ever created in either Heaven or Hell, and they seem remarkably resistant to being changed. I don’t know who first started calling the new area Abe, but it’s very fitting. The land grows like a living thing.”
The world is changing for everyone, and everyone has to find some way to deal with it.
Lucifer’s eyes were hooded. “I am very dedicated to a stable world for all of us, but I’m doing it out of spite towards the dead. I’m not going to kill you off with unwarranted optimism.”
Those who are left forge connections along with their new world.
“Remind me again why we’re bothering to talk to anyone else about this little project of yours?” Arariel asked as she strode back to him.
Yukimura decides how to deal with Belial.
"You know," Belial observed, voice a little husky, "this is one of the things mortals and celestials really aren’t supposed to do."
"I’ve already sold my soul to a demon," Seiichi noted, dryly, against Belial’s collar bone. "Breaking another rule is supposed to concern me, why?"
This is an answer to a challenge, the challenge in question being to write a serious story featuring Girly!Sanada and, preferably, Manly!Yukimura. Valentine’s and associated pratices seemed to offer a useful occasion for this. See Yukimura get chocolate from an unexpected source; see Sanada fidget and blush. Seriously.
A very small voice in the back of his mind was praying fervently to any kami that might listen and feel merciful that Niou never, ever found out about this.
Knowing the history of Byakuya’s promises, Rukia makes one of her own, and hopes Renji can accept it.
A subtle softening passed over her brother’s face. Nothing so overt as a smile, but Rukia brightened to see it. I’ll make our house proud, she assured him silently. I will. I promise.
Renji catches a glimpse of Rukia dealing with her own new position.
It was good to know she hadn’t lost any of the edge off her vocabulary after all those years in a noble house.
Byakyua watches Renji and Rukia, and tries to plan a future.
For a long time, Renji had walked at his heels, as if tame, always watching but never challenging.
He was no longer tame, and thus became worthy of consideration.
Byakuya causes there to be romance, like it or not.
Rukia sank back, arrested by the phrase marry out of the house. She remembered the conversation she and her brother had had in the garden one evening, about regrets and stubbornness, and spouses and honor. Her heart couldn’t decide whether to stop beating or to race.
Rukia and Renji, and, in fact, most of Soul Society, prepare; plotting continues.
He looked up at her with entreaty. “Are you sure I can’t just stay the third morning?”
Very memorable ceremonies.
But however much of a pain parts of it had been, it all came down to this. To he and Rukia, having escaped from the layers of their formal robes and elaborate hair ornaments, down to a yukata apiece, in a dim bedroom that belonged to them.
Rukia talks to her brother about career plans.
Kuchiki was her House, just as Rukongai was her past. And neither a survivor of Inuzuri nor a daughter of Kuchiki needed anyone holding open doors for her. She’d open her own damn door.
Roy wakes up in the hospital.
Roy woke far more slowly than usual, which would have been his first clue that something was wrong, had he needed a clue.
Roy recovers and Lisa keeps watch.
Hawkeye crossed one slippered foot over her knee and rubbed her toes. “I should have kept you at my apartment longer,” she said with some asperity. “At least I could walk across my guest room without tripping over anything.”
What does a career soldier do when he loses his career? And what do his friends do about him?
Roy’s past slid through his fingers into a box: a folded “portrait” of him, product of Elysia’s first finger paints; a box with his captain’s insignia—so that’s where it had gone; two letter openers, one of them an old knife of Hughes’.
Lisa gets some good advice from Gracia.
Lisa set down the teacups with a bit more force than necessary. “I’m not heartbroken over anything.”
Some reflections, while Hawkeye cleans her guns.
She liked her guns. Killing made her reluctant to eat for a day or two, but the guns themselves were clean and precise and definite at all times.
Havoc watches and worries a bit about his friends, as he moves them in.
Anyone with eyes knew Hawkeye’d had a thing for their superior officer since day one. Well, anyone with eyes who wasn’t Roy Mustang, but Jean had never been sure that wasn’t deliberate ignorance.
Lisa chooses a new direction to move in.
Roy would be in motion again, soon. He probably didn’t know it, yet, but she was sure of it.
Roy comes to some realizations and starts to move again.
Lisa had been a sweet, cheerful girl, when he’d met her. But she’d been seventeen at the time. He hadn’t been surprised that she’d become more solemn, when she showed up as his new Second Lieutenant two and a half years later. People changed as they grew up.
Roy stirs things up and gets a new job.
Clearly, Roy was heading for another superior who could spot him coming and going. This could be good or bad.
Team Mustang dives into politics.
Hawkeye sniffed. “It was bad enough, dealing with bureaucratic idiots as an officer,” she noted. “I’m not going to deal with them as a secretary.”
Lisa unveils her own new job.
She really couldn’t help a satisfied smile at the stunned realization spreading over Roy’s face. To be perfectly honest, she didn’t try all that hard.
Lisa and Roy reach an understanding.
“I’ve never met another woman who’s so beautiful when she isn’t trying.”
Ross fields some odd questions from her new boss.
“Ross-kun,” he murmured, not seeming to notice. “What do women really want?”
Lisa gets tired of waiting and coaxes Roy into bed.
“Lisa.” The whisper drew her attention from his hands to his face, and her lips parted. Roy was looking at her—at nothing but her—with a focus she’d only ever seen when he faced mortal danger. Except that, where his eyes were cold, then, they were warm now.
Havoc teases a happy Lisa.
Faint color painted her cheekbones and she gave him a mild glare. “Don’t you start too. Gracia is bad enough, giving me those doting looks every time I turn around.”
Their world has changed.
The first assassination attempt should probably not have come as a surprise. And, in a way, it didn’t.
After the first trip to the Forgotten City, Aerith comes to reassure Tifa and ask a favor.
Tifa reached out and felt her fingers brush through a soft, wavy wing of hair, and lost it completely. The tears rushed back and hit her in the chest, and her knees buckled, and she found herself curled up again pressing a fistful of Aerith’s skirt to her cheek as she cried.
After calling up the Lifestream, Aerith recovers and Zack teases.
“How… can I be out of breath… if I haven’t got a body!” she panted. “This is so unfair.”
A bit after game-end, Cloud broods over Zack’s sword and gets a visitor.
“Cloud, you idiot, you were sicker with transition than anyone else I’ve ever seen, and by the time you could put two words together in a row all the physical evidence and memories you had pointed to you being me. Why should I be mad at you about that?”
After Advent Children, Tifa visits the church and finds an unexpected Zack.
“I remember.” She closed the last few steps between them, eyes fixed on him. He looked so real, so there, that her hand lifted to touch and make sure. The amusement in his eyes brought her back to herself before she quite groped a stranger (mostly stranger), and she pulled her hand back quickly.
Zack and Aerith meet.
She tipped her head. That couldn’t have been what it sounded like. This guy was so obviously a SOLDIER, enhanced strength and reflexes and everything. He couldn’t possibly be ticklish enough to squeak.
The young women of the castle sneak a look at the new warriors.
“Oh, oh, over here! Come here, Sakuno, you can see the new warriors from here!”
Echizen escorts Sakuno and deals with a little trouble. Other sorts of trouble, he misses completely.
Or, she admitted to herself with a silent sigh, maybe he hadn’t done it for her at all. He was a samurai, after all; she was young, but she knew how the men of her own class could be about fights and challenges.
Fuji decides to try his hand against Echizen. It provokes a lot of thought.
Shuusuke felt a touch of excitement flicker along his nerves as they moved out into the open, feet scuffing up tiny puffs of dust to mark where they set themselves. Echizen was good. Not good enough to make Shuusuke lose, but perhaps…
Watanuki’s and Doumeki’s first kiss—the way you know it would really happen.
Kimihiro’s thoughts jumbled around inside his head, and one that didn’t usually get loose made it to the surface. Doumeki always waited, like this.
Waited on Kimihiro’s choices.
Daisuke thinks Satoshi should get a little more enjoyment out of life.
Satoshi-kun was silent for a moment, and Daisuke tried not to squirm under his level gaze. At last Satoshi-kun looked back down at the food and extracted a piece of tamagoyaki to chew, carefully and without any change of expression Daisuke could see. He watched hopefully anyway.
A quiet moment between Ryuuki and Seiran, balancing between truth and pretending.
“Let me play pretend? Just for a little bit?” Ryuuki begged, and Seiran’s resistance fell all in a heap.
Hiruma and Mamori play with guns.
The telling point, she felt, was that, however enticing the idea of things that went bang and whoosh and crackle were, she didn’t really want to shoot Hiruma himself. If she were being corrupted by his wild, thoughtless attitude she would, wouldn’t she? No one annoyed her as much as he did, after all.
Takes place just after the manga ends. Touya and Yukito decide to move in together.
Some things didn’t change, and Touya found that comforting. Years ran on, but Sakura still overslept, Yuki still loved stuffed breads for lunch, and he and Yuki still did their homework together in the evenings.
