Sanada and Belial talk about Seiichi.
"What do you want with Seiichi?" Genichirou asked, bluntly.
"His soul," Hatter answered.
Genichirou reminded himself, strenuously, of Renji’s caution that he wouldn’t get anywhere with Hatter unless he could keep his temper. He told himself it was just like dealing with Niou in a really bad mood.
SanaYuki make up smut.
"Seiichi…" Seiichi blinked; even when they were alone, Genichirou rarely let his voice soften so much. Genichirou’s arms closed around him, almost lifting him against Genichirou’s body. Seiichi released a tiny breath of his own and let himself relax into that support.
"I’m sorry," Genichirou murmured.
Lucifer visits Rikkai.
Renji, along with the rest of the team, was starting to get used to Mad Hatter’selusive, mocking presence among them. He supposed he should have knownthat would be the signal for a fresh turn into strangeness.
Lucifer passes through Seigaku and Hatter spots Fuji.
When the Lord of Hell and what had to be his strongest supporter appearedat the courts, Kunimitsu took a prompt and firm hold of Fuji’s arm.
Belial chats with Sakaki, who turns out to be an old ‘friend’.
Sakaki Tarou paused on his way across the grounds of Rikkai Dai to visit his contemporaries on staff, and watched the junior high tennis team practicing. This team was always worth watching, but this time something specific caught his attention. Something about them had changed, since the last time he’d observed these players. It was most notable in Yukimura-kun, and Tarou sighed faintly as he contemplated the inherent disorder of what he was seeing.
"Taken," a light voice stated next to his ear.
A Belial and Fuji moment.
Shuusuke took a precautionary step backwards. "Is there any particular reason I should ignore a friend’s warning in order to talk with you?"
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?"
Belial introduces the Fujis to the Mudous.
Notes: Contains consensual sibling incest.
Yuuta sighed, resigned, and then had to take a second look at the person who had hailed his brother. He didn’t think he’d ever seen anyone dressed quite that flamboyantly outside a festival. Or, possibly, a circus. He was busy enough looking at the top hat that it took him a few moments to notice that his brother had paused beside the strange person, and was now standing on Yuuta’s other side.
Between him and the strangers. Yuuta took a closer look.
Yanagi talks with Belial.
It had been a long practice, and only got longer when Hatter decided to tease Genichirou. Renji sighed.
A memo is mis-directed to Tsuzuki’s desk.
"To all demons rank of Brigadier or Duke," Tsuzuki read aloud, "from the domain of Beelzebub. Angelic response to recent demonic acquisitions among mortals are reaching undesirable levels. Any demons who are free are encouraged to go, forthwith, to Assiah (e.g. Earth, the mortal realm) and rectify this. Sec’y, Choronzon."
Hisoka was staring. "There is nothing more blind than bureaucracy," he declared with conviction. "They can’t possibly really think you’ll participate."
Somewhat troubled, Belial seeks out Yukimura.
Belial took a few steps out of the shadow, not far enough to show hir face. Apparently, it was still too many, because Seiichi stood, frowning, and came to hir.
Tatsumi has a minor upset.
Tatsumi Seiichirou read the memo he had found in the middle of Tsuzuki’s desk. Then he read it again. He put it down, carefully, and walked, calmly, down the hall to Konoe’s office.
"I’m going to be gone this afternoon," he informed the department head, and teleported out before Konoe could do more than blink.
Ooishi gets a taste of his own medicine.
Raphael snorted. "What is it with you warrior types that you never want to actually talk to a physician before it’s a crisis? Come here," pointing to the space in front of him, "and let me look at your wrist. You’ve been favoring it all day."
Belial talks to Rikkai about the past.
"One is not kind," she said, very precisely, without looking around. "Nor benign. One has corrupted lives and souls and cities. Most recently, one provoked the Host to attack an ally and caused the destruction of Kurai’s kingdom and people. One led Kurai herself into a marriage that would have sacrificed her life, by lying to her at nearly every turn. You should remember this."
Sakaki gets what he wants.
It was not, Tarou reflected, unusual for Keigo to sit in the window when he and his coach were discussing the tennis club. Tarou gave him that much latitude, because Atobe Keigo’s willing obedience was a valuable thing. Normally, however, he paid proper attention, no matter how he lounged.
Sanada and Belial spar a bit, verbally and otherwise.
Genichirou had known it was dangerous to invite Hatter to spar with edged weapons. He had, however, been confident that Hatter wouldn’t kill him, or even significantly damage him. He didn’t normally like the idea of handicaps, but in the case of a demon he’d take it.
He was coming to the irritated realization that, even restraining himself, Hatter was fast enough to touch him.
Mizuki has to deal with Tsuzuki’s unexpected perception.
"Okay, so let me get this straight," Tsuzuki said, nibbling one fingernail in concentration.
Hajime tried not to laugh at the rather cute picture the man made.
Belial gets a tennis team.
"Absolutely no interfering in the games in any way, shape or form, or the whole deal’s off," Sanada declared, firmly.
Belial leaned hir chin in hir hand. "Doesn’t that conflict with the clause about injury-proofing, though?"
The seal of the contract.
Seiichi remembered when Belial had set the seal of their contract.
Rikkai encounters shinigami at Nationals.
The day was clear and hot, good weather for their first match at Nationals. Renji supposed it was cosmic parity for something else to go wrong. He sighed when he saw Hatter’s eyes brighten, as the team made their way toward their assigned court. What had caught her attention this time? He looked in the direction she was starting to edge in and suppressed the urge to put a hand to his forehead. Of all the people for Hatter to decide to tease, of course it would have to be Fuji Yuuta, and, by extension, Fuji Shuusuke.
Sakaki meets an old acquaintance.
He was, Keigo reflected, getting better at spotting the angels. It was something in the way they held themselves, apart from any mortal excitement around them. At a place as excited as the courts hosting Nationals, they stood out. The one that seemed to have caught Kantoku’s attention today, though, was a bit different from the usual run.
Hisoka gets help from an unexpected source.
Hajime had figured out some time ago that Kurosaki could feel what other people felt, especially if they felt it strongly. It was equally obvious, to anyone who watched carefully, that Kurosaki didn’t have perfect control of this ‘gift’. Accordingly, Hajime had dropped a few hints about Nationals, how many people showed up, how excited everyone got about the matches. A few neighborly cautions.
He was starting to think both his team’s self-appointed guardians had completely missed them.
Michael taunts Belial about winning and Lucifer gets involved.
"Hah!" Michael took his opportunity, as the teams filtered past each other on the way out of the stadium, to taunt Mad Hatter. "Told you we’d kick your asses."
Kurikara and Michael hit it off.
Kippei really did hope that at some point his days would become less interesting.
One Kurosaki meets another Kurosaki.
"Cousin." Hisoka planted his fists on his hips and glared up… and up… at the other young man. "Impossible."
Yukimura meets his new magic teacher and said teacher’s housemate.
"So, tell me about these people."
It wasn’t really that Seiichi didn’t trust Belial. He did. He just also had a lively respect for his demon’s sense of humor.
If the seal broadcasts sensation…
"Niou," Sanada said, carefully, "are you really suggesting an… orgy?"
Konzen gets home and he and Ryouma finally meet.
Ryouma was fairly used to uproars around the house every now and then, especially when Nanako found his dad’s latest stash of magazines or one of his noisier senpai stopped by for a game.
This, however, sounded a little different.
Tezuka gets to high school and meets his rather unsettling new senpai.
At least there weren’t any supernatural beings hanging around this year.
Ryouma is still chasing Tezuka.
Dear Buchou,
Happy 40th. Heard you passed the Park Ranger certification; congratulations. Hope bears don’t eat you.
Kirihara in Hell.
"You… you… you ate Tash!" Jadis declared, pointing a shaking finger at Akaya. Or, possibly, at the cloud of smoke in front of him that had, until very recently, been one of Jadis’ inferior demons.
Sanada gets enspelled and everyone gets a surprise.
Belial really couldn’t help but find it entertaining that Genichirou complained about Hell’s demons not being serious enough in their work.
"I mean, really," Genichirou was currently holding forth, "this is ridiculous, what am I doing here? I’m in the wrong story!"
Author and Muse comments on the side, part one.
Author and Muse comments on the side, part two.
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.
Stories have the weight they do because they are metaphors; they employ symbols, hopefully shared ones, to convey more than everyday words do. This demands even more work on the part of the hearers/collaborators than usual. After making that kind of demand, after choosing to use more than usually obscure and ambiguous media for communication, I think it’s a bit much for the authors to get pissy over readers attaching meanings they didn’t have in mind.
Stories that are stories (STAS): these are what people mean when they talk about caring for the art and craft of writing. These are the stories presented to convey something about the characters in question, commentaries on yet another story that serves as source text. Generally some effort is made to stay congruent with the source text.
Stories that are not stories (STANS): these make no attempt to interpret the source text, rather they function purely as shibboleths. These are gestures of community, presented to convey the writer’s interest in belonging. Generally, they include only enough reference to the source text to distinguish, say, Naruto from Fushigi Yuugi. At least half the fics posted at ff.net fall into this category.
Kirihara meets Yanagi while out studying, and they chat about literature, history, psychology and teammates.
Of course, in the past few weeks Akaya had also learned that if he didn’t look up when the door opened he was liable to find himself lassoed by Niou-senpai’s scarf or pounced on by Marui-senpai, who turned out to be a lot more solid than he looked.
Yukimura, a bit troubled over Kirihara, talks first with Tezuka and then with Suzuoki.
“You don’t care, do you?” he asked, reaching up to touch a branch. “Not that you’re growing on volcanic rock, not that it’s winter. You just keep growing.” He sighed and smiled, a little crookedly, at the tree.
Kirihara deals with a stressful practice and finally snaps. In a good way.
Akaya tried to unclench his teeth before he gave himself a headache. “Both of you be quiet,” he growled.
Kirihara sets up some practice matches with Fudoumine, to the general annoyance of most concerned.
What was it, he thought crankily, with pushy senpai who couldn’t retire properly when they were supposed to?
It bears pointing out that almost all of the common criteria for Sue-dom fit a sizable category of the canon characters in anime. While I can see the justice of readers becoming annoyed by a fan-made original character who takes over the story when the reader was expecting to read about the original original characters, I’m increasingly convinced that it’s unreasonable to protest on most of the other standard Sue grounds.
Side-story to the Third Watch arc; follows from “Fly”, in Challenge. Fuji and Tezuka move from the court to the bedroom.
“I like your hands, you know,” Fuji remarked, head bent over the one in his possession.
A great many negative responses to negative comments that I’ve seen, my own included, are variations on the theme of “Where do you get off talking like that to me?” Which then gives rise to the standard return, which has become some variation on “You posted it in public and nobody paid me to be nice, get over it.” It may sound like an exchange over manners or freedom of speech or too much/too little personal investment, and those issues are, no doubt, present. But I think the underlying debate has directly to do with how authority is produced in fandom.
The new year starts, unsettling Kirihara a bit until he talks with Jackal.
The second years he could handle; he had earned what he saw in their faces when they called him Kirihara-buchou. Respect or fear or pride, he had earned it. But the glow in the first years’ eyes, the awe in their voices when they whispered to each other about him, that made him twitchy.
Muses. Imaginary Friends. Characters.
As best I can tell, you know, the three have always been much the same thing to me. I vaguely recall having imaginary friends (one or two) who were not either my characters or someone else’s, but the characters, and the stories I could tell around them and me definitely predominated, as far back as I can remember. My terminology is the only thing that’s really changed over time, as I called them imaginary friends, and then characters, and then muses—that last happening when I got involved in fandom and fanfic, where it seemed to be the going vocabulary term.
Inspired by ep. 174, and the anime version of the Rain Scene. Just how might Fuji answer the demands Tezuka is making?
More than Tezuka’s tongue stroking against his own, that firm hold occupied Shuusuke’s mind and defined the world for him at that moment. It was so unmistakably Tezuka holding him. Powerful, demanding, overwhelming. He felt so light in Tezuka’s grasp, as if Tezuka might breathe him in.
The start of the new year gives Fuji some new problems to deal with. Yamato-buchou is his mildly evil self.
Shuusuke regarded the lineups for the first ranking matches of the year as though the board might bite him.
Tournament season starts, and Kirihara gets a present from his coach.
Akaya turned a glower on Suzuoki, silently demanding to know what he was up to this time. Suzuoki smirked at him. “You got to play exactly once this weekend and last. You should unwind a little. Besides, you could use an actual challenge.”
Kirihara’s second spin through Regionals, and Nationals, as a captain this time.
The pace of what Akaya couldn’t help but think of as the real tournament season had two very different parts. There was the daily practice with his team, which, while demanding and sometimes intense, had a smooth swoop to it. And then there were the actual tournament matches, that sprinted along like a heartbeat after an adrenaline spike.